To Serve the Galaxy: A Stormtrooper Memoir
by Dapper Stormtrooper
Summary: The story of a veteran of the galactic conflict. Written circa 30 ABY.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

" _beware an old man in a profession where most die young"_

So, let's not beat around the bush here. I'm a Stormtrooper, AS-0091 and proud of it. Been fighting and killing enemies of the empire for most of my life, and if that offends you, you might just want to put this down, and walk away. Do me a favour and keep walking till you hit vacuum. I've been a trooper longer than the term "Stormtrooper". From the end of the outer rim sieges till end of the empire itself I wore the black and white. I've seen governments fall and rise again. I've killed more sentients than some plagues. I've seen and fought Jedi with their laser swords and savages with sticks and rocks. I've served everywhere, from the core worlds to the outer rim and every ship and chunk of rock in between. And so, if you're still reading this, and not sucking down vacuum, you'd better believe me when I tell you this; everything you THINK you know, about the empire, about the "rebellion" is bouma-shit.

I was born on Corellia in 37 bby (as the years are now reckoned). But when I was about 5 my dad got a "big" promotion and we moved to Coruscant. So, that's what I really remember growing up on Coruscant, the son of a security force sector-chief.

When you watch old vids (or those kriffing rebel propaganda videos) Coruscant looks like this pristine city of smiling, happy people who walk around without a care in world, personal security the furthest thing from their mind. And maybe it was, on the top levels. But people forget Coruscant is a "hive" world, layer upon layer, floor on floor, sector upon sector. Just one massive fetid mass of biology and plasteel pressed in on itself. Over a trillion sentients crammed into five thousand floors. I lived at the bottom of the middle, maybe 5 floors above the "dark" zones, areas that were "no longer part of the city." My father's job was to keep rot from moving uptown, to keep it contained down there in the dark. Honestly, I have no idea how he did at his job, but as a child and teen I idolized him. To this day, the most frightened I've ever been was the first time I took a wrong turn, went too far down and got myself lost down there. It's subtle, going down there in the dark, there's no big CAUTION holotape, no sudden lighting change just a realization that the people have started to watch you with a predatory hunger. Saw that look a lot in my career, mostly in backwaters across the outer rim. In all those places, you're like a cessrog in a pot of water, the heat turns up so gradually you don't notice till you're cooked.

While I couldn't tell you objectivity whether my father was any good at his job I can tell you the toll it took on him. I know that look now, that blank thousand-yard stare, the silences, the alcoholism. I know now that he was a soldier fighting a war, and war takes its toll. I know what you're thinking, that my father was a drunk and probably beat me raw after a rough day to relieve his own stress. You'd be wrong of course. I'd get a thwack on the head for foolishness a time or two but for the most part he was far too tired for that sort of nonsense. My mum was a different story, for such a tiny lady she packed a wallop. The only time I actually remember my father beating me was after I got lost in the dark zones when I was 9. He came in himself to find me and had he been more than a few minutes later I'd probably have been dead and parted out in the sector bod-chopshop. What I remember most about it was that after the beating he hugged me, and I realized that he was crying just near to breaking down silently sobbing. That, I think, was the last real day of my childhood.

No one ever payed attention to politics in downtown. I know it seems strange, we lived in the capital of the galactic republic, but nobody gave a rusty half a cred about it. Seemed to us that there wasn't much to pay attention to. Nothing ever got done up top, nothing ever changed at the bottom; and most of us hivers privately wondered that if nothing ever got fixed here, a mere twenty kilometres below the Senate, how did anything get done light-years away? Then came the rebellion of the trade federation, and you could really see just how out of their depth the senators were. World after world fell to the droid armies until… well you know what happened, the Jedi stepped in pulled the clone army out of their mystic arseholes and took the fight to them. That shit was everywhere, on every vid screen, holo-plex and in every conversation. Everybody had their favourite Jedi-general. I was a fan of Aayla Secura for obvious reasons (I WAS a teenage boy for stars' sake). And _everybody_ loved the adventures of Kenobi and Skywalker, that was holo-drama at its finest. I used to watch that show every week with my classmates. Mum would watch once in awhile too, unless it was an episode with Duchess Satine, she was not a fan of the "new mandalore" government. I still don't know how Kenobi and Skywalker were supposed to have got into and out of all those scrapes every week but I guess "the force was with them" whatever in the hell that's supposed to mean.

Around that time, Chancellor Palpatine became _Supreme_ Chancellor Palpatine and… well shit started to get done. The money and equipment my father was always trying to requisition actually showed up. The ROE (rules of engagement) changed to allow more aggressive enforcement, and the dark levels not only stopped growing up but started receding back down. My father actually smiled sometimes without having to force it. And most importantly, to my youthful self, he finally warmed up to the idea of me joining the family business. That's all I could think about back then. Well again I was a teenage male and so there were other things on my mind, but apart from that the only thing I wanted to do was join the force and help my dad. I sometimes wonder what I'd think of him now after all I've been through, just another sec-force captain on another hive world. I doubt he'd live up to my adolescent idolatry, but that's one of the shitty parts of getting old I guess. All your heroes fail you eventually.

Well obviously I didn't become a sec-ie. So, what happened you ask? What happened to that young idealist who wanted to fight crime and marry Aayla Secura? Well the Jedi happened, that's what. I don't think there's a core-worlder my age who doesn't remember where they were when the news came down. Emergency session of the Senate, all forces to high alert, the clone troopers everywhere. And then the broadcast, Chancellor Palpatine leaning heavily on his aide to take the podium and announce that the Jedi had turned on us. Tried to murder him in his office and take control the senate. And his face… he looked like they'd tried to slagging melt him. And this was only few months after the seps has attacked the capital and kidnapped him. The fury was palpable, in his voice in the senate and in the streets. Dad was out and I, in my infinite teenage wisdom, decided I was going to go "help." What variety of help my 17-year-old self could possibly offer never crossed my mind but the outcome was that I was there when it happened.

Order 66 it was called. Old Palpatine, with his typical foresight, had already prepared an opord (operation order) for this situation. The troopers abroad shot their Jedi leaders and on Coruscant the temple was raided. The troopers and sec-force were deployed to keep any fleeing Jedi from escaping off world or down into the dark sectors. Anybody gets down into the dark and you've got a hell of a task digging them out again. You've probably already figured out what happened from the context, huh? The shitty part was that I saw it. I won't try to say that it hasn't affected me, seeing your father and essentially your entire way of life get cut in half by a lightsaber tends to leave an impression, but as old as I am now and times being what they are I've come to terms with it.

There was the funeral and then the pension brief. And after the shock wore off I came to the following realizations. One: we could no longer afford to live on Coruscant as we were. And two: I had lost ALL desire to join sec-force. My mother was able to get a job waiting tables in a local juma and sabaak den. That, along with dad's death benefits, meant we could keep our flat. But I could no longer attend the school I was in. Hell, we could barely afford to eat, luckily sec-force looks after its own and we were only hungry maybe 3 days in 10. After the purge, everything seemed to go bad. Sure, the dark levels were getting cleaned up but that no longer seemed to be as important as it once was.

My 18th life day was a meagre affair, mom had managed to scrounge up a second or third hand Holo-emitter and someone to upload an old family pic of her and dad on to it. That and a bunch of dad's old stuff which was her unspoken but not too subtle way of telling me that I was now an adult and needed to start contributing. Life lesson: Mandalorian Ladies are not on big on subtle or gentle. I spent the rest of the day just walking different levels of the sector; dad's old beat. I even found the alleyway where dad had found me cowering when I got lost, now home to a droid part shop and a store which advertised "consumables" which everybody knew was a front for a spice den. I spent a good half hour there just standing, literally in my father's boots mind a perfect blank. I finally shook my head and ran almost directly into a clone trooper. He was keeping watch while one of his brothers lit up a holo-mercial. "Join today" it said with a flashing image of a trooper helmet. So, I asked him what the slag that has supposed to mean. He shrugged and said simply "I don't ask questions."

I'd like to say I don't believe in destiny, but I've seen a lot of strange shit in my life. And maybe this story does seem a bit contrived in retrospect but that's what I remember. I turned 18, went for walk, got lost in my own head and saw a recruitment poster. So, maybe destiny. Probably been better if I'd seen one of the real fancy ones in the upper levels "avenge the republic" or even better the "fury of the betrayed" one with the animated leering Jedi stabbing a trooper in the back. But the one that got me was just "join today." I didn't though. I joined the next. Took me that long to find the recruitment station.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

 _"_ _If we have no idea what we are doing, the enemy has no chance of predicting our actions!"_

I had never been than higher in the city than level 394, but the closest recruiting station back then was on 2000. I had to hitch on freight haulers and cargo lifters (and one seriously fragged off cleaning droid) to get to that rarefied air. Hell, I saw natural sun for the first time in probably a decade. I wasn't impressed.

They had set up in what looked to be an abandoned (or probably commandeered) retail clothing shop. Just 4 troopers, an officer, and half a dozen droids. Just them and a line of a couple thousand other idiots waiting their turn. All of them with a million questions and absolutely no idea what they were getting into.

It took most of the day to even get into the fragging building, the line snaked more than 1000m down the road. Rumours from the front constantly trickled to the back. Things got a lot faster when they finally had one of the troopers come back and give some answers to a few of our basic questions. "Yes" they were recruiting for military service. "No" you didn't have to be a clone (although what idiots asked THAT question I never knew). "No" They were NOT accepting non-humans at this time (a sizable chunk disappeared at that). And finally, halfway into the night I made it into the station.

The officer was racked out, asleep on a folding cot behind the desk at this point and one of the protocol droids had taken over the questioning process. The first question it asked was if I was serious, which I thought was a little odd. I suppose dealing with a bunch of gungan-headed kriffers who were just there for entertainment had made it a little hacked off. But I told it I WAS serious, and only then the medical droid off to the side moved over and began with the poking and prodding. All the while the protocol fired out questions. Date of birth, planet of birth, next of kin, criminal record and on and on.

After running this gauntlet for nearly a half hour it asked if I had any questions. All I wanted to know was how much they were paying. Stars above was I an idiot. But it was enough for me, so I gave them my thumb print and they gave me a report date and a credit chit good for a one-way sky cab ride to the port. I thought that was pretty decent of them, not that it gave me a way back to the 300s. So, I called my mum to tell her what I'd done.

She was… nonplussed. To this day, I don't know what she really thought about it, even on the few occasions I took leave and came home we never really talked about it. Even so, she made a few calls and I got a ride home with a sec-force vet who drove a delivery van.

Mum was always a pretty quiet lady, but that last week it seemed like she intended to fit the next years' worth of conversation into those few final days. Mostly white noise it seemed then. I knew that she was going to miss me even though she never quite said it out loud. For myself it didn't quite seem real, half the time. Hell, going top side had seemed unimaginably far away, leaving the planet was not even in my realm of conception. I kept half expecting to wake up, find out it had all been a dream, but I guess now I'd been feeling that way since my dad passed. People kept coming to visit, friends of my father I guess. Half to say how proud dad would be, half to see, like that protocol, if I was serious. A few of my uncles, mum's brothers, even made the trek from Corellia.

The part I remember best was that they all brought food. Mom would serve some then take the tray away and deep freeze the rest. That last week seemed somehow to last forever and to be over in a heartbeat. But the day came, mom saw me to the cab stand, we hugged, she almost cried and the sky cab took me the freighter docks. And then the kriffing shit storm began.

Absolute chaos. Imagine 100000 sentients from all over the planet, from every walk of life, in every colour (that a human could be). Talking and laughing and dragging their bits and baggage about with absolutely no sense of unified purpose or supervision.

I saw old grey haired women and boys that could NOT have been over 12. I saw lady in what looked like mock senatorial robes with a platoon of droids carrying luggage. I saw gangers with virulently glowing tattoos shining in the pre-dawn light. All of Coruscant was here, and the people in charge had no fragging idea what to do.

After some digging, mostly for my own amusement, I've discovered that I was not, as I had always thought, the "first boat off of Coruscant." I was the twelfth. The recruitment drive had actually started a few months before, around the same time as 66, but like most things on Coruscant it took a while to trickle down to my level. If that was the twelfth boat I cannot imagine what pure fragging madness the previous eleven must have been like.

"Only one bag" came the shouts from troopers. Lucky I only had one, some had nothing, others like the now furiously screaming schutta with the droid entourage had upwards of a dozen and were rapidly repacking. Eventually this howling mass of humanity was lined up and shoved, in many cases kicking and screaming, into a converted mega-freighter. I don't know how long we all sat there but they fed us a few times and Tanj, the former factory worker I struck up a conversation with, had enough time to begin dating the girl to his right, get into a fight over repulsor-puck teams and then break up with her. So, all in all maybe 2 days (Tanj was kind of an idiot). This indirectly began my training in two of the most important lessons you learn as a trooper. How to hurry up and wait, and how to sleep anywhere.

Hurry up and wait is almost an art form in the legion. You'll have 5 minutes of frenzied activity followed but hours of nothing. You have to learn to let your mind wander, but still have the situational awareness to react instantly. You never know when you're going to switch from waiting to HURRY, so you have to pay attention. But not too closely, because nobody can maintain perfect focus every moment of every day. Not without going mad anyway. I suppose sleeping enters into somewhere too, when you perfect your hurry up and wait skill, you can nap while still being aware of your surroundings. It's hard to explain, it's just something you pick up eventually.

When I disembarked, I found myself on board a space station still under construction. The docking ports were all finished (thankfully) but the dining facility, the barracks and the "school house" were barely begun. We spent a good couple of weeks at this skeleton of a station getting ourselves shaken out doing what is now called "reception." There were tests, mental and physical. Immunization shots and paperwork. I spent a delightfully morbid afternoon creating a last will and testament. We slept on the floor of the gym and ate packaged rations (something I would become exceptionally familiar with over the next few decades).

Most surprising to me was the fact that I wasn't a trooper yet. I, great gungan-headed fool that I am, had signed on thinking that I was guaranteed a spot in the legion. But what I'd actually done was write a blank check to the empire to put me wherever the hell they wanted. And so they assessed our capabilities there in reception to see what branch of service and job we should go into.

Every evening over chow they'd call out the names of early placements. The ones who tested well got snatched up pretty quickly for Imperial R&D. It seemed pretty straight forward; good reflexes? Pilot school. Good brain? Maybe R&D like I said or maybe officer cadet school or grav-tech.

The bottom rung it was rumoured was simply "Navy crewman." Half of the kids that I hung around with said that if they got that job they'd just walk away. But I never saw anybody try to do that. More likely they'd take a walk out the airlock.

Some never got their name called but were just gone come morning chow. Tanj's girlfriend (they had split and got back together at least a dozen times by then) went that way, which is probably the only reason I noticed. He was in a frenzy about it obviously, and nobody had any answers. The troopers always just said "I don't ask questions" which at the time seemed a bit creepy with their matching voices and matching helmets that they never seemed to take off.

Really, I didn't see why Tanj was so hacked off about it. The girl I had been seeing got called a few days before for repulsor technician and we parted without tears. It was like that in reception, you knew your time was limited so you didn't get too attached. Another life lesson there, don't get attached; but I wouldn't really learn that lesson for almost 20 years.

Anyway, you already know what job I was going to. But it was nerve wracking for me at the time. They'd call out big lots of names, you'd get up, stand around whoever was doing the calling and after they finished THEN they'd say what job you'd got.

I was eating dinner, some kind of green noodle in a sealed bag, when I heard my name. I'd got so used to just eating and not really paying attention that when they called out "Nuffee, Jo'es" it seemed to echo around the room, and then my brain. Nobody else batted an eye till I got up, Tanj and the rest seemed a bit stunned but this wasn't the first time we lost a member of our little group. I made my way to the front of the gym (the dfac still wasn't finished) and waited. I waited a while, it was a pretty big group. I admit I was a bit anxious that, based on the size of it, we were all going to end up as navy crewmen. But we didn't, obviously, we were off to trooper "school." No desks just a hell of a lot of punishment.

So, there we stood back at the docks the next morning. Yawning and grumbling at 0400, not a trooper in sight. I remember nervously thinking that I had reported to the wrong place, despite the fact that everyone else was there too. The transports pulled up 10 minutes later and dropped ramp. Without a word the lot of us piled on. And that was the last thing I did without being told to do it first for over nine months.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

 _"_ _Sitting on a mountaintop firing my gun_

 _Fire so long that the MPs come._

 _MP, MP don't arrest me,_

 _Arrest my Chief hiding behind that tree! "_

I don't remember that first month so well anymore. The Empire, and I'd finally started thinking of it that way in my head, was flush with credits back then. What they wanted was new and better versions of clone troopers, so the first thing they did was flush the lot of us full of bio-plex. What exactly is in that slag is pretty technical, and I'm no mad-boy. So, let's just say I came out of that vat a good 10 cm taller and with an extra 20 kilos of muscle. I wasn't particularly scrawny before so you can imagine what it was like.

They phased that out that about five years later. Turns out people start asking rather pointed questions when 30℅ of your recruits don't survive to phase 2. Probably a cost issue I bet. But back then they wanted NEW clone troopers but without that ten year build up, so no expense was spared. So, I played lab rat to the mad-boys, and I survived.

Then we finally really met the troopers, the old boys. My drill sergeants were all clones and they were getting old, and cranky. Nothing was ever good enough for them. We drilled endlessly, blaster apart, and back together. Apart, together, for days it seemed like. I swear to you I spent at least a week learning to properly "open a door" which is much more complicated than you'd think.

That first day, after the plex I mean, was a nightmare. I don't think I, or any of us really, realized just how coddled we were. Just how EASY we'd had it before. Sure, I might have gone hungry sometimes, but at least I could walk a dozen paces without being screamed at. At least I could go to sleep without the fear that I would be woken a half an hour later just to be yelled at for something somebody else did.

You would walk in formation, bleary eyed in the pre-dawn fog, an old boy on the left, shouting cadence to keep you in step with your fellows. And you'd look up into that foggy sky and think "How in the hell did I end up here." Lack of sleep makes you very introspective I've found. Then you'd get thumped in the back of the head for taking your eyes off the man in front of you.

In retrospect, I get that the old boys had no idea what they were doing. They were soldiers, not teachers and it's no fault of theirs they didn't make the transition smoothly. Slag but I hated them then, but at the same time I wanted nothing more than their approval. It's hard to explain. Every time you failed at something you'd be furious with yourself. For failing yourself, your squad and the old boys. Just a primal bone deep shame. There was also the fact that if you'd kriffed up badly enough to be noticeable your whole squad would be running laps round the compound till half of them passed out.

We'd moved dirtside after phase one and Camp Cody, as it was called, was way up in the mountains. Only one my squaddies, big Chorik, was from a high alt planet so the rest of us were practically sucking vacuum just walking around out there. The old boys would run with us on our "fun runs", never sweating, never breathing hard. We'd run until people began to fall out, or pass out. Then the old boys would assign someone to carry them. Rinse and repeat till there were no more backs to fill. And emperor help you if you tried to fake it. They always could tell if you were faking the funk. They'd just grab you up, stimm you so hard your eyes felt like they were about to pop, then make you lead the squad UP a hill.

That was frag of it, it was never just you getting punished in this phase, it was your whole squad down in the mud. Mass punishment it's called. You and your squad would pay for your failure, pay for it in blood and tears. The boys you ate with, who shared a bay with you, the ones watching your back. Your own little tribe of hooligans, and stars help you if you crossed them.

There was one in my squad, Maerko, who just didn't seem to get that. Had no shame, always trying to fake the funk, always the carried never the carrier. So, what do you do in that situation? He never listened and never seemed to give a dwang about the rest of us.

You had to pass certain tasks to get out of the training segment you were in, the whole squad had to pass together. Maerko just could not or would not pass the "leap" drill. The idea was to build a kind of teamwork with your squaddies by leaping over top of one another and rolling under the man leaping over you faster and faster. It was real basic shit, kids game type stuff. Maerko just wouldn't even kriffing try, and so off we'd go on another fun run.

Finally, we got so frustrated we beat the living poodoo out of him one night after chow. Off he went to sick call and off we'd go on a run. With an odd number, eventually someone had to carry two. That was the lesson I expect; every man is needed. Even knowing that still didn't solve our problem. I'll admit we even talked about killing him, but we weren't sure if that would count as a pass or fail.

You're horrified I'm sure, but we were at our wits end. How do you make a man do something he'd decided NOT to do? We'd tried everything. Joking, cajoling, begging, THREATENING and finally outright violence. But he'd got it in his head that he wasn't going to do this one fragging thing, and stars above, we'd no idea how to change his mind.

Luckily, he saved us the trouble, the next time he slagged up, we started on our little run and the mad fragger just sat down. I kriff you not he just sat down and pouted, lower lip extended, like he was a slagging child. Then, and this is when I was sure we were for the firing squad, he took a swing at the trooper of the day. The old boy didn't even say a word, just bent him into a fragging cantina twist and waved the medics over. Never saw that fragger again, thank the emperor, but never got a replacement either. Lucky we had Chorik, that big son of a schutta could have carried half the squad his own self.

You don't really appreciate personal freedom till it gets taken from you. A civilian gets thirsty he gets a drink, gets sleepy goes to sleep. When you belong to the legion you don't get that. You eat when it's time to eat, you piss when they say you piss, you sleep… well you fragging sleep whenever you can.

Fifteen-minute shuttle ride, sleep. Waiting your turn at the blaster range, sleep. Every bastard that goes through Camp Cody can nod off, in full battle rattle on the parade ground and still pass inspection. I frag you not I once fell sound asleep during a run. Only woke because I broke ranks and got ahead of the group.

But we, the 13 left of my squad, survived phase two, which they called the red or "bleeding" phase. So we got to move on to phase 3, black phase. Red phase broke you, that's by design and was still the primary goal when I went back to Cody as an instructor. You gotta kill the civilian to make the soldier.

Somebody, I don't remember who, said "kill the boy and let the man be born." Well that was about the size of it. Maybe old Jo'es Nuffee wasn't dead but he sure as hell wasn't the same dumbarse civilian anymore.

Black phase was fun, at least by comparison to red phase. The old boys finally took off their helmets and spoke to us. Whole sentences even. It was now you could see how old they were looking, not decrepit and grey but not the same face you'd seen in the news-holos. There was a camaraderie there between them, that we the newer Stormtroopers have always tried to emulate but have never quite duplicated. How could you though? They were all the same person. Or at least that's what you thought at first, but as you worked with them you would begin to see the differences. Different walk, different firing stance, different reactions. You'd figure out which one was liable to give a decent answer to a question, and which one was likely to give you a beating for breathing wrong.

We, the old boys and the new kids, sort of came to an understanding there in black phase, a meeting of the minds if you like. Couldn't have put it into words back then but the problem was a psychological one. They were made the same and were trying like hell to be individuals. We were all individuals trying to learn to be the same. Like we were at opposite ends moving towards each other.

Also, and I'd never have said this out loud, I think they were a bit frightened of being replaced. But I think the fact that we idolized the hell out of them got through and they relaxed a bit. The name of the game became recognizing skill sets and using them effectively while maintaining unit cohesion. That's straight out of the field manual, and while I didn't write the damned thing, writing that slag is officer work thank the emperor, I definitely made sure that went in there.

But I was serious when I said it was fun. We were finally assembled into platoon and then company elements and got to do manoeuvres. It was soldiering, all the fun bits. Real life in the legion can be a bit dull sometimes but I'll get to that later.

Black phase was the longest, almost 5 months. We learned our trade; blaster, auto-cannon, juggernauts and hoppers (the prototype at-st). We jumped out of dropships and off the sides of cliffs. We thought we were the hottest dwang this side of the core. Then we did it all over again, in armour.

A word about the armour before we move on. I've heard a lot of slag about how our armour was terrible, hard to see in and ineffectual against blaster fire. What you've got to understand is that not all "Stormtroopers" you see are really Stormtroopers.

About 10 maybe 12 years into my service somebody up top got one of those "good" ideas. People were scared of us, and rightly so. Often times the mere sight of the legion was enough to get Seps and Rebs to throw down their arms and head for the hills.

So obviously, what we needed wasn't more ACTUAL Stormtroopers but the appearance of them, this high ranking dwang for brains decided. So, they came out with the LTCA-01, that's light tactical combat armour. Looks exactly like my kit but it's basically just plastic. They mass produced it and gave it to a lot of the "puddies" that's PDF, planetary defence forces.

The ACTUAL outcome was that you had a bunch of poorly trained militia masquerading as Stormtroopers and soon nobody took us seriously. In fairness to the naysayers the armour that came out during the rebellion years was a little toned down. But I personally did my best to make sure any trooper under my command had the good stuff. The key was to befriend as many techies and supply-dogs as possible. Friends in low places are the best kind to have.

But MY armour was awesome. Built in bacta vents, plasma resistant ablatives, full holo-HUD and tactical net uplink. If you went down in a firefight you can be damn sure your bio-restorative package would kick in and immuno-seals would lock down. Saved my life more times than I care to recall.

Nowadays those fanatics who mimic us don't even have toxin filters in their helmets. I'll never understand that, find a BETTER way to save money. Every soldier you train is an investment, it costs thousands of credits to transport and train us. Yet some bureaucrat always wants to save some by cutting the dwang that keeps that investment alive. Arseholes.

After black phase was white phase, and Emperor's balls was it dull. White phase is all polish, putting that last buff and shine on you. Drill and ceremony, code of conduct, customs and courtesies. The kind of dwang that officers love and the rest of us merely tolerate. The only useful slag was continued instruction on armour maintenance.

It was also at this point we were first exposed to the trying presence of officers. Now don't get me wrong, clone officers were great. Literally born and bred for this work. They had the same armour and the same training, and got down in the mud with us. But the new prevailing military theory was that the officer corps should NEVER be drawn from the enlisted pool, and should be held to a "higher" standard. So, smarter (at least book smart), but not fighters. We were fine with that, as it made it much easier to get away with shit. To this day I wouldn't trust most officers to be able to pour piss out of a boot if I wrote the instructions on the heel.

We also really began to see, at least in part, the way the clones felt. In our armour, we were all the same, indistinguishable from one another, a part of something bigger than ourselves. It drove the officers mad, "How are we supposed to punish effectivity, went we can't tell one from the other" they'd whine. To which we'd reply, our voice modulators active "sir, corrective action is the purview of the non-commissioned officer. Should you feel a correction is necessary please refer to your enlisted counterpart." Again, straight out of the manual and dammed if it didn't keep us out of trouble. Mostly because an officer is too embarrassed to ask which one of us is which.

The old boys used to wear different coloured insignias to denote rank but nobody up top had decided whether to carry that unofficial system over to the new legion, so we were all in uniform black and white. WE could tell who was who because of the tac-link in our helmets. It was a constant underground struggle to keep that power out of the mismanaging hands of the officer corps.

I've always considered the uniformity to be, in part, a tribute to the old boys. They were all the same and we should do our damnedest to be too. It's the least we owe them. The ONLY non-trooper who had access to the trooper tac-net was Lord Vader. I didn't mind that because A) he was basically an honorary trooper anyways and B) who was gonna tell him he couldn't? Because I'll tell you true it sure as shit wasn't going to be me.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

" _There's two types of family; the kind you're born with and the kind you pick up along the way. I'll let you decide which is more important"_

Despite all I've said about the "fun," white phase wasn't all juma-juice and dancing girls for me. I'd been made the student squad leader in black phase and had done a damned good job of it, if I don't say so myself.

A "student" nco (non-commissioned officer) isn't really any different than any other trainee trooper; you're not getting payed any different anyway. Your old boy would see something in you or maybe he just needed a body in a slot and you'd get tapped to play the role. It's a great opportunity to get your feet wet in terms of command but it makes everything a bit more difficult. You got to lead and everyone had to call you "Chief" or "Sarge" but the downside is that when you're in charge you're IN CHARGE. Everything automatically becomes your fault. Someone in your squad out of ranks? Your fault. Someone missing gear? Your fault. Doesn't matter that you told them where to be and what to have with them. YOUR FAULT.

Mass punishment, like in red phase, was mostly done with unless somebody really kriffed up. Every once in a while, you'd see a whole platoon low crawling everywhere for a whole day, and you just KNEW somebody had screwed the droid then. But if your squad was kriffed up it didn't stop the old boys from punishing you right alongside your guilty trooper. Sometimes they'd just dust you off and just make the ACTUALLY guilty trooper watch. I didn't mind being the one to take the hit for my guys, seemed to me to just be another hoop you had to jump through.

But sometimes if your old boy was in a slagged off mood and one of yours seriously fragged up you'd get fired and busted back to private. Of course, that's what happened to me. I'd held my notional rank for nearly 6 months, one of the longest in the company, when some stupid mynock-kriffer forgot their secondary ammo canister in the bay.

I'd almost forgotten about the bays. Starting in black phase the whole platoon started bunking together in these giant rooms called bays. Part living area, part museum showpiece they were to be bacta-tank clean at all times. And I do mean ALL times. And if they weren't… We'd come back from 36-hour training exercise to find the whole bay upended. Everything scattered around, bunks disassembled; once there was a small fire.

They were decent enough to leave your personal sentimental dwang alone but everything else looked like a ground quake has gone off. So, you'd clean and clean and clean, stand inspection and just pray it was good enough. Looking back on it seems like I spent more time after lights-out cleaning that fragging bay than sleeping in it.

You felt a certain way about your bay. For one thing once we got our armour the bay was the only place we were allowed to remove it. You left the bay you were trooper xx-####, you came home you were you again. That's what it was, it was home. You took ownership and protected it from idiots who couldn't keep their areas clean and the old boys who wanted nothing more, it seemed, then to deprive you of what little sleep and privacy you had.

My student first-sergeant (a truly luckless trainee if there ever was one) had a bright idea to save us from the old boys sneaking up on us. This seems like common sense now but we started to post a guard at the door to call at-ease when the old boys came rolling in throughout the day, or night. It's a customs and courtesies thing. Your officer comes into a room you announce him by calling "attention" your NCO's just got an "at-ease". Either way it's good to know when somebody who can make your life miserable is in close proximity to you. I think the first time I saw one of those tough old bastards smile was when I was posted on the door, this was a bit after midnight, and called the bay to parade rest before he got 2 steps in. We'd learned the lesson and he was pleased. He rewarded us by only finding six infractions and only _half-heartedly_ demolishing the bay.

Of course after than they started to get downright _playful_ with us. We were so good a pulling guard that they would help us find MORE things to guard they said. So, for about a month any time something was fragged up, we got to guard it. Beds not made correctly? Bed Guard. Bathroom not clean enough? Toilet guard. Guards not in full kit for their shift? GUARD guard. It got pretty ridiculous, but then again, it's not even close to the most ridiculous thing I've done in my term of service.

I've digressed, some stupid fragger, and I don't even remember which one of my mental deficients it was, left his secondary ammo pack in the bay. How you forget something that rarely ever even comes off your kit I'll never know. The old boy just looked at me and said "head left, loser."

More trooper talk; when you stand in a formation the farther to the right you stand the higher your rank in your squad. When you hear a trooper say something about someone "standing to his left" he means the guys he outranks. To his "right" are the guys who outrank him. I went from Chief, the squad leader effectively a staff Sergeant, down to buck private. And most embarrassing of all this was 16 hours before our final mission. Our GRADUATION mission or FTX as it was called (field training exercise). Threw the whole chain of command into disarray. Second worst day of my life up to that point.

I can handle a lot of stupid dwang, hell 80% of what we do in the Legion is stupid dwang, but this was bar none the worst most blood curdling shame I'd ever felt. Like all the air got taken out of me. I'll live in mud, with no rations and no air support for months and come out with a smile on my face. But you call me a failure and humiliate me, stars but that's the worst.

I know now that they were looking for a someone to demote. It's part of the plan, to make us adapt to holes in the command structure on short notice. Knowing that still doesn't make me feel any better about it.

It was however strangely liberating. Being in charge, and responsible, for all those stupid bantha-kriffers was exhausting. Being a private again? Simplest kriffing thing in the world, keep yourself toes to the line and your kit squared away and that's it. My only true consolation was that in deference to my prior leadership ole Chorik, who inherited the chief slot, let me pick my position in the squad. So, I made me the auto-gunner.

The Z-7; 16 kilos of spitting death. Stars above did I love that weapon. 240 rounds of bravo class blaster fire A SECOND. The kriffing thing could chew through permacrete, alien chiton and grade 3 and below plasteel. It turned civilian speeders into scrap faster than you could blink and anything short of a battle armoured juggernaut into the same with a count of five. Had to remember to turn my helmet mic down because I would roar along with it, clog up the whole tac-net.

The only downside is the weight of the blasted thing not to mention the ammo packs. Stars but I loved that gun. I called her Zeetha, had her with me for years and she was always my favourite gun.

The FTX was easy. With no responsibilities but keeping Zeetha ready and spitting death it was a blue milk run. Barely even worth talking about. Two weeks of simulated combat operations, against another battalion of trainee troopers (with sim rounds of course we weren't THAT wasteful) capped off with a 30km march.

It was practically a parade ground march the whole way, my squaddies jabbering over the internal comms, about… stars whatever nonsense a bunch of idiot kids like us talked about. Girls and violence and the occasional poke at somebody's mother (always a popular joke topic).

We marched in outer silence, but in our helmets we laughed and sang and generally just took the frag out of each other. We were young and stupid and soldiers of the Empire, and nothing could stop us.

At the end of the march, we fell in to battalion formation, and listened to some navy prat go on and on about, service to the people or duty or some other such slag, the kind of dwang officers eat up with a spoon and that puts those that actually DO the killing to sleep. I know that I personally caught an extra 20 minutes of sleep, Zeetha still at port arms, then came to attention at the call and marched away with the rest.

But we didn't go right back to our bays at first. The whole battalion, minus the non-clone officers, marched for a few minutes out into a crater area that we had been using for demolition practice. The old boys, almost all of them were there waiting. In the middle of the crater was big bowl, surrounded by the three clone leaders. Obviously, they all looked the same but you learned to tell the difference between them. The one in charge had a big slagging scar around his left eye, and he fell us out of formation into a big group around him. He had us take off our helmets so he could get a better look at us.

His speech was… different than the navy's one. He was quiet, but when he looked at you the words seemed to punch you right in the guts. He said we had a lot to live up to, that replacing him and his brothers was a monumental task, perhaps impossible. But that we were in many ways already stronger than them, because we had made the choice to be here.

He was born into it, he said, but we stood up when we were called for, to be the thin line between civilization and chaos. And because of that, he said, we'd earned the right to join his family, a family of blood and fire, war and death.

He grinned and said they'd thought about it and they'd come up with a good way of really bringing us in. With that he had six troopers come up, and chuck a bunch of random slag into the bowl. They had jar of blaster oil, artillery propellant discharge, an emergency vitamin ration pack, a mound of dirt from the landing pad, the contents of a demo charge igniter and a litre of UF-8 (universal fuel for pretty much all imperial vehicles). Then he uncorked about 2 gallons of Lum and poured it over the mess. We stirred it around and passed out cups of the "grog" to the whole battalion.

When we all had one he raised his and said "Remember boys be polite, be professional, but…" and he paused here "always have a plan to kill everybody you meet." He grinned at that and said "bottoms up" we drank, and that's how I became a Stormtrooper.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

 _"_ _The only constant in war is death. Yours, theirs or somebody else's. If you're lucky enough to get to choose who gets it… you'll know what to do."_

Kids these days, they have the wrong idea about the wars I fought in. Those damn New Republic vids again. Everyone seems to think that the separatist conflict, the "clone wars," ended when Lord Vader (or I guess Anakin Skywalker if you believe that) killed the separatist leadership on Mustafar.

Unfortunately, war doesn't work like that. Sure, a lot of droids went off line after the Mustafar strikes, but not anywhere near all of them. Probably not even half. Not to mention the grassroots insurgent movements on separatist core worlds. It wasn't just a bunch of politicos with a frag load of droids, it was a flaming movement. They even had a parliament and a capital planet and a flag; the whole bit. That and after Mustafar all these other little groups decided to take advantage of the separatist collapse to start their own little movements.

Some people will always find reasons to rebel it seems. "For freedom" is popular, so are its cousins "independence" and "for the good of the people." I've fought a lot of fools who shouted a lot of idiotic slogans during my time in the service and not a one actually seemed to care for the common man in the street. The regular guy who just wants his coffee and a newspaper in the morning, to work all day and sleep all night. Maybe get in a little trouble on the weekends. The common man wants a simple life, and it was the legion's job to let them have it. So in late 3535 ATC, (18 bby) I deployed to Sullust and got to cut my teeth fighting actual clankers owned by actual separatists.

I can't tell you just how nervous we were, fresh out of Camp Cody, ready to take the fight to the enemy. Practically bouncing around the hold of the shuttle, all wound up like puppies away from their mother for the first time. But the name of the game in the Legion is patience. Galactic transit maybe be faster than light but that doesn't make it instant (another fact those fool movies seem to forget). So, we slowly made our way down the Corellian Spine to the Rimma route, and on to Sullust, gateway to the outer rim.

Sullust is a pretty shitty world; unless of course you're a Sullustan. They liked it quite a bit, so much so in fact they were one of the few organized fighting forces that managed to reboot their droid armies and give us a go. Stupid kriffers. Excellent mechanics, terrible soldiers.

That first hot drop through atmo was something else. Just standing there hooked up to the static line, your stomach threatening float up into your helmet. Feeling like a coiled spring just waiting to be let loose. Gripping on your blaster so tight your knuckles ached. Nobody said a word, but you could hear the tension, singing in the air. Like your fragging nerves were ringing; a faint hum. The lights from the view ports go from the dark of space, to the grey of cloud, to the light of day and you'd just _know_ it was almost time. You'd hear "STANDBY!" and you just wait for gravity to come all the way back, the ramp to drop, and the thunder and killing to begin. The waiting is always the worst part.

But exciting new experiences aside fighting the droids was surprisingly easy. After months of training with our older brothers we were expecting… I don't know, them to be more fearsome. They were the boogie men of my childhood but they toppled over easier than naval officers after two drinks.

Tactically speaking the problem with droids is they're incredibly stupid. Very good on a large scale with the real-time uplink with command and control. But on a one-to-one comparison between us and the clankers they were absolute trash. No teamwork, no improvisation, and no retreating. If their programming said "take that hill" they'd just faithfully march right into Zeetha's line of fire until they got a new command. It took us all of a week to annihilate what passed for a command structure there, and I got the feeling that the sullustan's hearts really weren't in it. But the real problem wasn't the separatist loyalists or their droids, it was the underground Sullustan freedom movement.

The USF were a bunch of cowards. Always nipping at our heels with sabotaged vehicles, or jammed comms or rigged demo charges in their cities. It's like they thought that if they annoyed us enough then we'd just up and leave. But then I suppose everybody still thought we were the republic, and that making a fuss would somehow accomplish something. Well it did accomplish something, it pissed us, and more importantly the brass, right off.

The task force commander (I was in a regiment of the 597th legion at the time) called for the whole ground force to keep their heads down for a day. Then he hit the planet with kinetic strikes from the high orbitals. Pissing off a trooper is one thing; pissing off an admiral? That can rearrange a planets geography.

My chief at the time was a clone trooper who went by "Ripper" after the vibroknife he always carried. Claimed he'd killed a droideka with it and he never gave me a reason to doubt it. During that day, he brought the squad into the garrison dfac and the whole battalion sat around and discussed how we were going to deal with this situation.

I know that nowadays that's not really protocol for a military organization, but the old boys weren't used to civilian resistance and they really weren't sure how to proceed tactically. Myself and the new kids really didn't offer anything useful besides a "make 'em pay!" kind of attitude but the meeting really wasn't for us.

This is how the old boys did things. You follow the chain of command until you realize that the higher-ups don't know how to solve the problem (generally orbital bombardment is a good indicator of that). Then, have a discussion about it without the formality of rank structure in the way. I gather it's something they picked up from the Jedi, which I have no problem with. I once heard it described, by a trooper who was a bit more educated than most of us, as a "clone-moot" which, after I looked up what moot meant, I rather liked. Perhaps it's something to do with being half-mandalorian but I've always liked a bit of pomp. We kept the tradition of the moot alive even after all the old boys were gone, but generally we limited attendance to the non-commissioned officer corps.

Unfortunately, the moot really didn't come up with any good ideas. Terrorists generally aren't considerate enough to have a universal strategy. That's the fundamental challenge of dealing with an insurgency, you have to constantly adapt to evolving situations. Correspondingly our best strategy also turned out to be unpredictability. For the most part over the years it's worked pretty well. You lock down an area to be your safe garrison (preferably someplace outside of an urbanized area) and then roll out at unpredictable intervals. Intelligence work is key, so we did a lot of business with the newly reformed imperial security bureau. Very intense the folks over at ISB, all officers but much more action oriented so we didn't hold it against them.

After the shelling stopped ISB had a near flood of locals just begging to tell them where the hold outs were. Hard to keep your silence when you realize the inevitability of defeat. So, we'd do a standard containment op. You'd shuttle up to the boat which would manoeuvre in upper atmosphere over the target. Then you'd dropship straight down creating a perimeter around the target. Stars what a rush, dropping a few kilometers, no engine, no nothing just a straight wild plunge to the ground. Kept the seps from picking us up till it was too late. Half the time you'd catch them all asleep, relying on their recommissioned droids to do the watching.

The only challenge, after fragging their droidekas if they had em, was taking one or two alive like ISB wanted. Your training ran pretty deep at that point and if your helmet tagged something as hostile you shot the fragger. We also started getting issued these new rifles, the T-7 ion disruptor, as a sort of "good versus remotes AND the living" initiative. No stun setting on those monsters. They claimed it could take out a whole starship but that's just normal tech-bragging.

They did wonders on droids of course, but against organics? Just be glad your helmet had audio filters because it was NOT a quick death. I would learn this later in my career but a large chunk of leadership in the legion is trying to find a happy medium between the different, often opposing, demands of the higher ups. "Test out this weapon that kills dozens at a time" and "capture some alive" don't work together to well. Although I tell you I think I'd have rather been killed by the T-7 than captured and handed over to the ISB. Let's just say calm gentle negotiation was not their go to strategy.

I can already hear the lot of you whining at this point. "How could you do such a thing?" You screech. "All they wanted was to be left alone." Well so do ALL criminals, they just want to be left alone to steal and murder and rape. And I'll be fragged if I'll let them.

I make Sullust sound like a picnic, because relative to some of the other campaigns it was. But I still lost four members of my squad to those little cheek flappers, including big Maerko. And not in a firefight either, they slagging well poisoned some of our rations, and then blew up a ground convoy with medical supplies. I'm a soldier and there's nothing more frustrating to a soldier than an enemy you can't come to grips with. There's just something awful about getting all that training, surviving all that combat and then dying from something petty like poison or a mined road.

It wasn't even the majority of Sullustans who fought us, it was a miniscule one tenth of a percent. Claim to love democracy all you want but when 99.9% of the populace favour the empire you've got to recognize your own hypocrisy. Of course, the USF didn't, rebels never do, so they kept bombing. Often times it was their own people when they couldn't get to us. "Collaborators" they'd say which to my mind put paid to their whole "good of the people" shtick. The USF killed more civilians than we ever did; bunch of hypocritical fucks.

Eventually we caught enough of their leaders, kept hammering them in their hidey holes that they became manageable. Not gone, but manageable. That was always our mandate; to clean up enough that you could turn the planet over to someone else for maintenance. Not that the puddies were ever worth a damn, but at least it was someone else's problem.

In those days, we were rare enough and valuable enough that you didn't just leave us idle for long. Hell there was probably only a few million of us at this point, and while that seems a big number remember we had a whole galaxy to clean up. So, it was back to the boat for us and away from Sullust. And away from my wife.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

 _"_ _There's nothing in this life more dangerous than a beautiful woman."_

I should probably mention at this point how reassignment worked. The Ministry of Personnel, or PerMin, liked to maintain unit cohesion during a transfer. So, you'd transfer at a battalion level from one brigade to another, sometimes in the same legion, sometimes not. You kept your companies together so they could maintain a sense of fellowship with one another. Teamwork is a precious resource and when the dwang hits the fan it can make or break the success of the mission.

On a ship, you'd train, even up your numbers and resupply your material deficiencies; all while you did shipboard duties. Dead and unsalvageable troopers have to be replaced at some point. You mostly made do with what you had, and what you had lost, while you were groundside and then you would get new guys shuttling in while on a ship rotation. That's why, with very few exceptions, you'd transfer from ground operations to ship board garrison for a while and then back. It was a trade-off, you're physically safer on a ship, but under a great deal more scrutiny from high command. When you're dirtside people shoot at you, but you've got a great deal more operational freedom, and access to, what we may politely call, "personal amenities."

But it's those "personal amenities" that get a trooper in trouble. Firstly, they're expensive. A private's pay isn't much, but when you're not paying for room and board and you've never really had a salary before it feels like you're making senator money. Secondly, they impair your judgement one way or another. Whether your poison is booze, spice or women it will make you forget both your pain and your self-control.

I, at least, had the good sense to set up what's called an "allotment" in the early days of reception. So about 75% of my pay was automatically deducted from my check and was going home to my mum on Coruscant. So, my "discretionary" funds were limited which really only mitigated my kriff-up.

My first, and FAR from last, mistake was named Leena. Somehow during my not so copious liberty times I had managed to find enough time to get myself married. Leena was a beautiful human local on Sullust who worked as a dancing girl in a _lovely_ establishment called "the rusty spanner." It was a dive, but it was close enough to the fort to be OUR dive.

To this day, I still have no idea how I ended up, drunk as a Lord, arm in arm with her in front of the imperial registry office. I suppose it was all part of her plan; impressionable young idiot, stable income, easy mark. I'll admit she was a lot of fun, at least she was as long as she was in eyeshot. But my bank account suffered a great deal while she was Mrs. Nuffee.

It wasn't too bad while I was still stationed on Sullust but once we all started our ship rotation… I still remember walking into the commissary on board the _Tenacity_ , where the bat (battalion) found itself, to buy a pack of liqu-stim, only to discover that not only did I have NO credits to my name but I was overdrawn by a reasonable amount. I had to go through my chain of command (a truly harrowing experience) to use the Holo net to call back to Sullust.

Leena was all smiles and giggles and made like she just miscounted. I, being a 19-year-old fool who thought he was in love, bought it at full market value. I thought I was being a mature adult when I forgave her with the promise that she'd be more careful in the future. Of course, she'd also mentioned, only in passing of course, that maybe this wouldn't have happened if more of my pay check made it to her. I almost bought it, said I'd talk to the finance people about it. Luckily, I was more of a momma's boy than I was wrapped around her finger. I never went to finance.

The next month I was broke as soon as my pay check hit the account. The Holo net call was a bit angrier on both sides. My chain of command sitting in the room for it. I think it was an odd experience for them, a bit of a peek into the lives of non-clone humans. The following month it was the same business all over again, but this time she wouldn't even answer my calls.

I remember sitting there, my head in my hands unsure of just what to do, when Sgt Ripper put his hand on my shoulder and just said "we'll take care of it." I'll be damned but they did too.

Turns out ISB does not look fondly on spouses who monopolize a serviceman's pay check. I suppose in retrospect they were setting a precedent; troopers were of limits. Life lesson 1: never get married, if the corps wanted you to have a spouse they'd have issued you one in reception. Life lesson 2: should you forget lesson one never EVER give your spouse access to your primary accounts. I'd need more than two hands and feet to count troopers I've known who came back home from some backwater world on the rim to find their money, their kids, their pet goldfish AND their spouse have up and buggered off.

As far as I know Leena is still in a salt mine somewhere, trying to pay the empire back for "theft of government resources." I admit that I have very little sympathy for her. For myself I learned another valuable lesson, civilians are never to be trusted. Whether they be merchants, dancers, or just some random schlub in the street they all seem to want something from you. Sometimes it's just the creds in your pocket, sometimes it's your life. It's better to not find out which.

But aside from my marital problems shipboard life is a dull piece of work. The troopers are charged primarily with ship board security, which all in all is a pretty dull affair. You'd patrol hallways as a squad or pair off at intersections. That was a nice detail, as long as you got a good partner. You could nap half your shift away and rotate via helmet com every few hours. But then it could also be pretty miserable too if your partner was a complete kriffer. I remember clearly this one guy, Eammor, who could NOT shut his trap. 12 hours of listening to him bitch about the Sgts, or talk about some holo-drama he watched or stars above knew what else; drove me up the bullhead.

I had thought I was good at just letting words go through one ear and out the other, but this idiot had a way of saying something so bizarre it would shock you right out of the peaceful haze you were trying to insulate yourself in. He once tried to have conversation with me about who in our squad we would have to eat first in the event of starvation induced cannibalism. He was a strange one, but it takes all kinds I guess.

That's another one of the things people really didn't get about the Legion, how disparate we were. The uniformity doesn't help that impression of course, but I think people assume that underneath the helmets we're all the same too. Everyone assumes we're all mindless, muscle bound jocks who only enjoy reality-holo-dramas, lip-stim, alcohol and blasters. Sure, there are troopers like that, but I've met men and women in uniform who listen to nothing but classical and played the synth-mando. I've met fools and heroes, the lazy and ones that couldn't sit still. It's a big galaxy with a lot of people in it, and those people join the legion. When the helmet is on they're all Stormtroopers, but you take that lid off and you just find a trillion men and women with and a trillion different ways of getting by.

The best standing around doing nothing duty on the ship, and we used to fight over it, was standing watch at bulkhead "L." This bulkhead was in different locations in different ships but there was always an area that housed the quarters of the fairer sex. There weren't any lady troopers in those days, probably the bio-plex again, but they most _definitely_ were females in the Navy. Lot of comms officers, grav-techs and interestingly shuttle and TIE pilots. That's another thing everyone gets wrong, you think pilot you think dashing rogue, snarky grin wavy hair, like that smuggler prat in the propaganda films. But in reality, about 60-70% are women. Something to do with reflexes and lower oxygen consumption I've been told.

But anyway, no women in the legion yet and we were charged with guarding the only exit or entry to their living area. It meant you got twelve hours of _exceptionally_ pleasant scenery and a potential chance to beat the hell out of some Navy slag who was having a tiff with his girlfriend.

I won't claim to be the best of students but it seems no matter where you go or what part of history you read, an Army and a Navy never get along. The first time I was demoted, after trooper school anyway, was after a fight with a bunch of Navy shits in a space station in the western reaches. To this day, I've no idea what it was about but it seemed damn important at the time. That being said we may have used excessive force a time or two in "the execution of our duties" but not only was overlooked it was downright encouraged.

The higher ups were always real nervous about putting men and women together on the same ship, so they would come down like a tonne of ferrocrete on anyone "acting inappropriately." I'm pretty sure that's why we were on guard there in the first place. Past bulkhead L was supposed to be women's only, and I think high command forgot that we weren't all clones anymore.

That was always odd to me, the old boys seemed to have no interest in the opposite sex. Not that they were gay they just seemed confused by the whole idea of relationships outside the legion. You'd sit around and boumashit with your mates about the women you'd known, and they'd just have this utterly flabbergasted look on their faces

But not a one of us would have dared to try and make a move on the ship girls. Not only did our first Sergeant put the fear of vacuum into us, but we considered it something like our sacred duty. Guards of the temple. Look but don't touch or you'll ruin it for everyone.

In later years' women were allowed into the legion. Not many I'll admit, but they were there, and they were usually on L guard on a permanent basis. Not that that made any sense, I still remember Sgt Naeki, who had a mouth on her filthier than nearly anyone else I've ever met, brag about all the "scratch" she bagged because of L guard. Stars above but she was funny, lost her at 3rd Hoth if I remember correctly, amputation, bad suit seal.

The only other restricted part of the ship was Stormtrooper land. The "Zoo", because it was where they kept all the animals. It wasn't "officially" out of bounds but you didn't go there if you weren't in the legion. The only exceptions were medics, techies (if we couldn't fix it ourselves), captain of the boat (if he made an issue of it) and again Lord Vader. Anybody else might not come out again.

That was OUR place, we had our own rec areas, commissary and exercise facilities. Hell, several ships that I was on had their own separate power grid for the Zoo.

Exercise was always problematic on ship too, we were used to having a couple of kilometres to roam around in. Now it was all sprints in hallways for cardio and weightlifting in turns because you had to share. Very limited space.

You never really got comfortable on a ship either, the air felt strange and stale. Your footsteps sounded wrong echoing around the decks. And I know this sounds odd coming from a hiver but you begin to miss the sun and wind. Even in the bowels of Coruscant there's a bit of breeze from the vents and ducts, and the glow bulbs fade in and out at the same pace as the sun above. On a ship, there's just nothing, like time has just stopped. Lights always the same, no wind to speak of.

So even when you're being shot at you don't really miss shipboard life, it's just something you tolerate. Maybe that's where the Army Navy conflict comes from, because I've yet to meet a career Navy dog who didn't feel a bit off dirtside. It's just the way it is I guess, and that's just fine by me.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

 _"_ _Learn from your mistakes, or they'll learn from you and become more refined, terrible tragedies"_

The _Tenacity_ was a convoy guard ship for most of my tour there. Not that that was particularly important to us in the zoo; unless you're expecting ship to ship combat don't bother telling us, we don't care. Our shipboard duty ended in early '36 (17 bby) and she dropped us off at a world called Lasan. You may have heard of it, bit of a clusterfrag, lot of bad media.

The fragging Lasat royal house had gone separatist at some point in the war and I'll admit in this instance we did not have the popular support like we had on Sullust. So, it was a long, brutal campaign. We had a lot of respect for those tough kriffers, very good ambushers, very little of that cowardly saboteur dwang. Very dedicated to the cause, no turncoating after the initial bombardment. Honourable fighters, which is unfortunately why it got so messy at the end.

It was the T-7s that made a mess of things. The brass directed their deployment and they issued them out to something like 3 in 7 troopers. Somebody up the chain liked their efficiency numbers, but the numbers never tell the whole story. Lasat physiology turned out to be a mite different than anyone else it had been tested on before. The effects were… bad to say the least. Horrible might be a better word, and this is a career trooper saying this. Best case scenario the enemy would die screaming for about 20 seconds, their nerves on fire, their organs rupturing one at a time. Sometimes they'd just go brain dead and scream until you finished them off some other way. Worse case they'd go absolutely berserk. They'd just start ripping into themselves or you or anything nearby. Their eyes would begin bleed and they'd just throw themselves at you howling mindless fury. Repeated blasts from the T-7s were useless then, the parts that made them a person were dead and fried at that point.

First time I really took a bad hit in the legion was with one of those blood brains. Ripped right through the armour on my arm with his fragging teeth, took out a good mouthful of flesh and snapped the bone too. Trooper armour was designed to protect against energy weapons, not claws and teeth. Sgt Ripper took him with his vibroknife, a headshot was the only sure way with the berserkers, and medivac-ed me to groundside garrison. Few days of bacta later and I was RTD (returned to duty).

It was after this I first started getting the screamers. The "screamers" are what we call these really bad slagging dreams most troopers get. Stay in the legion long enough and you never sleep quite as soundly as you used to. I'll nod off and the mad blood-eyed lasat has got my hand. It just won't let go, and it eats me a slow, painful bite at a time. Arm to elbow, elbow to shoulder, shoulder to neck and I just can't shake him, his mad bloody eyes gleaming like blaster bolts as he crunches along, my screams mingling with the screams of the slow dying all around.

Honestly even without the screamers you never really sleep soundly after Camp Cody; it's just part and parcel for the legion. And you DON'T talk about the screamers. The higher-ups think that means you're going mad, and they'll send you packing. They're wrong of course, like on most things. I was always more concerned about the kids that DIDN'T get them. They were more likely to snap and hurt somebody or just shut down. You learn to see the signs, the REAL signs. It's a look in their eye or a flatness, a sense of falseness in their voice that gives it away.

I had a friend named Vesh, and this is a few years later during the Naboo campaigns, who had this gungan skull he had found and kept. He'd talk to it, use it as a ventriloquist dummy, have it tell us jokes. Had us in stitches. Our platoon leader, a snot nosed lieutenant, didn't care for it; kept trying to get him sectioned. He got shot by a trooper not three months out of Camp Cody who never showed any of the "official" warning signs. Just took off his helmet one day out on patrol and started blasting away. It's odd but the few times I've seen a trooper snap, and I don't need more than one hand to count them, they ALWAYS take their helmet off first. Odd that.

But back to Lasan. We were fighting the Lasat armed forces through the whole planet. Block by block in the cities, hillside to hillside in the country. They had home court advantage, we had superior firepower. To try and make up for the lack the civilian populace took up arms. This was a mistake, and it turned into a bloodbath, both figuratively and literally.

I remember blasting our way into the Royal Palace. The smoke and fire, the smell of ion so thick you could taste it even through your helmet. I've heard the last stand of the Lasat Royal Guard described as "a bright shining moment of defiance" and "an example of the honour of the Lasat people and of duty beyond the pale." For me, it was just another Tuesday. The defenders looked sick and desperate, ragged civilians alongside spit and polish Royal guardsmen, who'd probably never seen anything more dangerous than a thunderstorm till the Empire came. They were offered the chance to surrender, not a one of them took it. Not a one of them walked out.

I guess you can say we won of course, for a very loose definition of victory anyway. At least I'm still kicking but you don't see too many Lasat anymore. And while I still have very little respect for any governmental bureaucracy I think we can all agree the senate banning the T-7 was a good thing. Pity it took a few billion Lasat horror stories to get it done. More a pity the proud fools didn't surrender, could've saved us a lot of blood and saved me one of the dozen little terrors that infest my sleep cycle. I got a promotion somewhere in the middle of all that screaming too. Private first class, having made private two after Camp Cody. Unfortunately, I was to lose it soon after in the previously mentioned bar brawl in the western reaches.

Being a private, of any class, is a lot like being a child in some respects. You are assumed to not be able to take care of yourself, but correspondingly very little is considered to be your fault. If you aren't toes to the line and squared away it's your NCOs fault not yours. This doesn't mean you're not going to pay for it, Sgts love a little "corrective action", but it's not your "fault." I know it's a fine distinction but not being "at fault" can be very liberating.

When I got busted back down to PV3 (private third class) myself and Sgt Ripper went before the commander (not a clone) and the 1sg (first Sergeant). The commander's bit was a mostly dry affair, asking if I wanted to dispute the charges (which I did not) and if I had anything to say for myself (which again was big NO). After which he busted me all the way down AND gave me 45 days of reduced pay and extra-duty, which to this day I feel was a bit harsh, being the MAXIMUM sentence for my infraction. After he toddled his fat arse out (the schutta), 1sg lit into us. Well not US, that's the point but into Sgt Ripper. "Where were you when this happened?!"," why were your troopers unattended?!"," what the fragging dwang were you thinking!?" It was like I wasn't even there. Ripper took it all stone faced and answered as shortly as possible. 1sg just shook his head and finally looked at me "what happened kid?" He said. "Got into a fight top." I replied dumbly. (top is slang for 1SG) "No shit bouma-kriffer" he said "how many?" "Bout 20 top" I replied. "You win?" He asked. "Yes top" I replied proudly. "Good shit" he replied and that was the end of it from him.

The truth of it is that every time a trooper gets caught doing something stupid it draws attention. Attention, positive OR negative, is never a good thing. More scrutiny means more oversight, more oversight means more attempts to micromanage. And micromanagement from on high gets more of us killed than blaster fire.

Punishment sucks. I don't think you'll find a sentient who disagrees (apart from those odd ones who pay for that sort of thing). My pay was zero, the half pay I received still went automatically to Coruscant and I'd be slagged if I was going to change that and let mum know what I'd done. And on top of that there was extra duty.

Normally on a ship you work 12 hours on, 12 hours off. Your free twelve you could do whatever you wanted, sleep, write home, exercise, visit the commissary or just sit around and shoot the slag. The imperial regulations recommend each trooper get at least 4 hours of sleep, and they don't have to be consecutive hours either. Given that and the fact that I was allotted an hour for personal hygiene every day meant that my chain of command decided, generously, that I would work the normal twelve, then work an extra seven for my crimes.

I'd clean the whole Zoo by hand or scrub the refresher with a tiny brush. I cleaned every weapon in the armoury, multiple times (and Zeetha over a dozen). I flushed out various systems on our dropships, a task that would always leave me filthy and stinking. All this, with no pay, for a month and a half.

You discover real quick that the most important thing you have isn't your pay or the things you buy with it, but your free time. Being at liberty is what keeps you sane, time to unwind those knots in your head and keep yourself in the right place.

Extra duty wears you down, grinds you real thin and makes sure you never, EVER, want to do whatever it was you did ever again. The only positive that came out of it was my weapons drill. After cleaning everything in the armsroom multiple times there was not a trooper, clone or otherwise, that could disassemble and reassemble any weapon in inventory as fast as I could.

I found, and still do find, weapons maintenance to be soothing, almost meditative. I'll sit on the floor the technical manual in front of me, my hands doing the work seemingly of their own accord and just get a feel for the weapon. I myself am not a sniper, I won't claim that I could shoot the wings off a mynock, but for all around consistent skill with all weapons the legion uses I'd take bets against all comers. Mêlée weapons too, which I owe in large part to Sgt Ripper.

About two weeks into my punishment Sgt Ripper managed to steal me away once a week for hand to hand and mêlée weapons training. He'd heard about my screamers you see, and to his mind it was because I didn't have enough confidence in close quarters.

Well either he was dead right or the extra exercise just made me too tired to dream because it worked for the most part. I still have that dream to this day but now sometimes I can shake that kriffing Lasat off and stick a knife in his head. So, I guess that's two things extra duty did for me.

Day 46 came around and I reported to the SOG (Sergeant of the guard) who looked at me, gave me one of those lopsided smiles that the old boys saved for dumb privates at their most foolish and told me I wasn't scheduled for anything but 12-hour liberty. After a moment of dumb shock my legs carried me back to my rack and, while trying to figure out what to do with myself, I fell soundly asleep.

It was the first time in a long time I didn't wake up at 0600 when the bay lights came on. The kid next to me, Derva I think was his name, said he had to shake me twice, something unheard of in a Camp Cody graduate. I developed a newfound respect for free time liberty after that. I also got Sgt Ripper to keep giving me private lessons and a month later we had the whole squad in there three times a week. I also cleaned Zeetha every day from then on until I laid her to rest on Dathomir.

My sleep cycle changed permanently after that, being used to only four hours I managed to get along quite nicely with 6, including the occasional standing up naps I managed to find while on duty. Otherwise the days of spending my free time on stupid bouma-shit was at an end. Mostly at an end anyway.

So, all in all my time aboard the _Resolution_ was instructive if not particularly pleasant. She ( _Resolution_ that is) was detailed with a task force to patrol up and down the Hydian Way, primarily in the outer rim. So, when we got dropped it was little jog from there on to a world called Dorvalla.


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8**

 _"_ _Even the strongest, most fearsome monster you ever saw was a child once, shivering and alone in the dark. Remember that next time you're feeling like a failure. We all have weakness, it how you bounce back that matters."_

Dorvalla is an ore mining planet. The specific rock in question had something to do with star fighter construction as I recall. But whatever it was that they were ripping out of the ground, the part that we noticed was the slagging dust.

Dust everywhere. A thick choking grey dust that got everywhere and into everything. You'd go through a filter unit anytime you went outside for longer than a few minutes. Shuttles would need their intakes scrubbed any time they wanted to take off. The only relief from the dust was when it rained. Of course, when it rained the dust turned to _mud_ and the mud made the terrain impossible. Track vehicles didn't work, repulsors might work for a while but then your intakes would get clogged up and stars know where you'd be stranded. Most likely in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.

Of course, all these factors made it the perfect live-fire test ground for the Walker and the Hopper. Technically called the AT-AT (all terrain armoured transport) and AT-ST (all terrain scout transport) this was the first time we'd got a chance to play with them, and oh boy were they fun.

When you do a unit transfer and complete your shipboard tour, often times you'll end up doing a completely different kind of fighting when you hit ground side again. It's always needs of the Legion, go where you're told, don't ask questions. I had only done two deployments as a light infantry unit prior to this. Just you, your weapon, your kit and a whole lot of patrolling (reads as walking around looking for dwang to shoot). You typically use light infantry for urban pacification, or "door-kicking" as we called it.

This deployment was my first Armour tour, so we got the walkers. Luckily, we had been told this ahead of time, and so got lots of sim practice while still aboard the _Resolution_. Often times that's not the case of course, I remember falling in groundside, on Tosste, thinking it was going to be an armour deployment and we were going to get walkers, only to discover the mission parameters had changed and we got stuck in with a battalion's worth of HAPs (heavy artillery platforms) and MAPs (mobile version of the same). We had about 18 hours to figure out how to use the slagging things and deploy them for a fight. Managed to do it of course, a trooper doesn't know the meaning of the word defeat. Most of us can't even spell it. Actually, in retrospect Tosste was one of my favourite deployments.

But more on that later, the Walkers on Dorvalla were new to us. I'm still not precisely sure when they came into production or when they were first issued out, so I won't try to say I was "first". In a galactic scale conflict a lot of those details get lost in the various transit times, and communication lag. That said, the walkers were new to us and were great fun; stomping all over the landscape like the wrath of some angry Titan is a blast.

When you drive the thing, it's like you ARE the Walker. Sitting there in its head you're suddenly a great big slagging four-legged monster just slowly, relentlessly running down your prey. Well not _running_ them down, more of a slow grinding march. An inevitable tide, and implacable glacier, or some other twenty credit word which means fragging slower than a Hutt 100m relay team. They're definitely not a pursuit vehicle is the take away, which is probably why there's a speeder bike bay in the back of the slagging thing. Not that we were using the bikes too much on Dorvalla, what with the dust and mud.

Anyway, we were on Dorvalla to put down a bunch of striking miners. Not normally worth our time, but these kriffers had a bunch of Droidekas that they had somehow managed to pass off as "mining droids" when the call came for the separatists to lay down arms. They also had an uncanny knack for escaping at the last second, pulling off "impossible" missions and generally kicking the living slag out of the local PDF. Skill of the puddies notwithstanding high command thought it was worth our time and unfortunately it was. You've probably already guessed what High Command only suspected; there was a Jedi with them.

Jedi are by and large the most frustrating single enemy for us. Their "abilities" make them a force (ha ha) unto themselves. We used to have a saying in the corps "once the sabre is out, all bets are off." No single person is more damaging, more disruptive and more… impossible than a Jedi.

You would have thought that back then with all the clones still in the service we'd have known how to deal with them. But a Jedi that knows what they're about defies all expectations, changes the whole course of battle and the tactics you can employ. Of course, back then I didn't know that, being a dumb private and all. What I did know was that at my very first glimpse of that blue blade, 500m to the left of my walker I went completely berserk. I was sure that now was my chance to get some _gra'tua_ , some "vengeance" for my father, as though this dwang-head was the one who had personally done the deed.

I was driving that day, more's the pity, and immediately broke formation, veering off to the left to engage that blue blade. I didn't even hear Sgt Ripper screaming obscenities at me through the tac-link. I was going to squash that bastard and not Sgt Ripper, the Force nor all the stars in the sky would stop me.

That magic son of a schutta just stood there on top of a wrecked hopper, brown robe flapping in the dust and wind as I charged him down, screaming bloody murder and firing my turbo-lasers at him. As I closed to the 100m mark, and began to group my shots more accurately he just hit one of them back at me. Like he was playing one of those racket games that used to be big on Balmorra. Made it look easy; Jedi make everything look easy. Blast took the walker in the head and down we went.

Lot of design flaws in those first few models, but I won't try to use that as an excuse for how it went down. I will however say that the view slits in the head got a lot better protected, shielding and the like over the years. Still, Jedi trumps Tech any day of the week.

I woke up the next day in the bacta tank; my face having been pretty badly burnt from the control panel fire and of course the turbo-laser. Luckily, I had never been particularly good looking to begin with, so the scarring just gave me a grizzled look which gave me the face of a much older man. Stars but bacta itches.

Waking up in the tank is never a fun thing. The animal part of your brain thinks you're drowning for a few seconds so you wake up with a jolt. You're floating usually, so a part of you is convinced you've been spaced. And worst of all, bacta itches. Not like itching powder, or the pox, or something you picked up from a rodian dancing girl. Bacta itches like your nose itches when you've got your helmet on in the middle of a parade ground inspection. It itches on the _inside_ , a sensation which is nearly impossible to describe. It sort of _hums_ at you all over as the adrenaline rolls through you, your hindbrain screaming at you because you're drowning. I wish that WAS the worst way to wake up; but in the Legion, there's always a worse way to wake up. Better than waking up dead I suppose.

To be honest, floating there, itching like mad, thinking back on what I'd done, I expected a court martial. Maybe even a firing squad. I was ashamed, and terrified. Thank the stars no one was there because I wept like a baby. I don't think I've cried like that before or since then; not even at my dad's funeral, not even when the _Star_ got destroyed. I was just so ashamed, and scared and _frustrated_! I'd been a Stormtrooper for almost 3 years, been through the wringer, emerged a changed man. Proficient and competent in my field, with several tonnes of battle steel at my fingertips and still, a prat of a monk dispatched me with the flick of his wrist.

I felt hopeless and powerless; frightened, like the whole fragging galaxy was just another dark level of Coruscant, waiting to devour me. I don't know how long I floated there, curled up onto myself, silently howling into the bacta but eventually I fell back to sleep and woke up in the med bay.

1sg was there when I woke up, that clone face of his blank as to his thoughts and intentions. On my lap, I discovered a field holo-projector which he casually flicked into life. It was a replay of the battle, and I could see my own walker breaking formation. It seemed so small, so far away I didn't even flinch when my walker went down in flames in miniature on my lap.

I was sure he was going to pause it there and demand an explanation, and I tried to launch into one, stars only knew what I thought I was going to say. He silenced me with a look and pointed back to the image. The battle had continued after I'd blacked out and that tiny figure on the broken hopper was hammered again and again by walker fire, little blue sabre flashing until… he went down. _Then_ 1sg paused the vid, "he's only one, and WE are many" he said. With that he took the projector and left.

Stars, but the old boys had a knack of saying a lot with only a little. Nobody in command ever said a word to me about breaking ranks that day; hell, I received a commendation from the admiral when we got back aboard the ship.

My squad knew the score of course, I'd told a few of them about my dad at Camp Cody, and by way of osmosis the newer guys knew too. That and the fact that nobody died for my mistake let them just sweep the whole mess under the rug, chalked up to "youthful exuberance" and "martial zeal." The vid made the rounds somehow, and everyone got a good laugh at how fast I'd managed to make that walker go, leaping over obstacles blasting away.

My buddy, Tarvek (he was the one who taught me the word moot) said I looked like a kath-hound pup going after a rabbit. "More a like a mad dog going for someone's throat" someone else laughed. That's the kind of thing that sticks with you in the Legion. And that's why if you ask most veterans about Sergeant-Major Nuffee you'll get a blank look. From then on most everybody just called me "Mad-Dog."

Aside from my little kriff-up, the Dorvallan campaign went smoothly. After the Jedi got taken out, we tore through the remaining miners like a Hutt at a buffet. Made me glad for Order 66, our job would have been a hell of a lot harder with a few thousand of those blaster-bouncing bastards floating around the galaxy.

It was odd, but we never really talked with the old boys about Order 66, guess it seemed a bit of a taboo subject. I'd find out later that a lot of them hadn't liked it, they'd done their duty of course, but they hadn't liked it. Of course, nowadays, conspiracy theorists will tell you they had some sort of chip in their head, that MADE them execute order 66. That's just wishful thinking from civilians that are my age. They were our heroes growing up, and the new regime being pro-Jedi it's understandable you want to defend your childhood heroes from their own murderous reputations. It's much easier deny personal responsibility, and blame the Emperor, than to just admit that the clones KILLED every damned Jedi they could get their hands on. Orders are orders, _don't ask questions_.

I do understand the old boys' reluctance of course. Had the Jedi been fighting _with_ us instead of against us they'd have been invaluable. In my old age I can admit that much at least, Jedi were amazing force multipliers. But killing your own, and to the old boys the Jedi _were_ their own, is a brutal business. It's necessary sometimes, but painful all the same. I've only ever pulled the short stick for firing squad detail twice in my career, and every time it gets you.

Doesn't matter what the prisoner did, if they were a service member it's a bad day. Reb, Seps and traitors I'll shoot all day long, with a smile on my face, and sleep the sleep of the just afterwards. But pulling the trigger on your own, on another trooper? That's big pile of dwang.

Not a lot can get you to the firing squad; cowardice in the face of the enemy, treason and conspiracy to commit it, and rape are the only ones I've ever seen happen. Although to correct my previous statement about having a bad day, the whole fragging battalion was queued up to put a blaster bolt in the rapist. Like I said earlier, we're the guardians of the temple, you can look but you don't touch. At least, not without permission.

As hard as it is, in most cases, it has to be done. One of yours has dishonoured the Legion and it's up to you to put it right. If your hound bites you, or someone close to you, you've got to put 'em down. It's the same for us, hounds of the empire is what we are. Hell, my battalion's nickname was "the hounds of Felucia" or just "the hounds" at the time.

We pulled out of Dorvalla a few months after that and started shipboard duties on the _Imperator_. It was to be a short stint there, only a few months, because we would soon be urgently needed to put down an uprising in the core.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER 9**

 _"Anger, rage, hate these are all tools. Denying yourself these emotions is like refusing to use a hammer on moral grounds. You use the best tools you have to do the task at hand. Anything less is just foolish."_

Balmorra is a forge world. All factories, mines, fabricators and processing plants. A lot of the best and most powerful weapons in the galaxy get made there, and have for a very long time. So, you can imagine the problem you get when any significant portion the population becomes discontent with its leadership. Lots of guns, lots of gun makers, lots of troubles.

As I've said before, I'm no scholar, but Balmorra seems to have a history of pulling this kind of slag. If you watched the news back then the Balmorran senator was always the first one jump up and shout whenever the Republic, or the Emperor, called for increases to blaster control or any kind or government oversight on the industrial sector. Very big on personal freedom were the Balmies. You meet any Balmorran the first thing they're going to ask is your stance on gun ownership. They LOVE their guns, perhaps a little too much. And that is coming from a career soldier who NAMED his favourite.

Personally, I don't have a problem with responsible blaster ownership. The emphasis here is on "responsible." I should be allowed to buy a weapon, I've had nearly thirty years of personal experience and training with them. An investment banker who reads too much "Mandalorian of fortune" on the other hand? Not so much.

Although this is more the opinion of the older, wiser me. Young Mad-dog was far less tolerant of "idiot civilians with delusions of talent." Way I saw it was the fewer guns in the hands of the civilian population, the fewer that would make their way into the hands of His Majesties enemies. Which, not coincidentally, would increase my personal chances of survival.

But my fight for survival in the Balmorran rebellion started before we even hit atmo. The Balmy uprising was already well underway and the bastards had already taken control of the upper orbitals of the planet. So, I got a crash course on ship defence.

Any boarding action, whether your defending or attacking, is a difficult, dangerous business for the Legion. When you're on defence you're restricted to using the weaker charlie class and below blaster rounds (bravo and alpha have a chance of punching through the hull). Also, no explosives, ion or otherwise, so as not to damage the fragging thing you're supposed to be protecting. Your attackers of course have no such problem as they ARE trying to frag the ship up. Although in practice they don't want to punch a hole in the ship during boarding either. Nobody _wants_ to be spaced after all. You're also going lose a great deal of your concentration of force in the defence. You've got to spread out to defend all points of the ship for a potential breach style assault.

There are effectively three types of boarding action in a ship to ship conflict; hammer, breach, and naked style. The easiest, and thus my favourite, is the hammer style. It's what you usually get when your ship is a fair bit bigger than theirs. The navy's counterfire can effectively neutralize the enemies point defence. So, you load up a shuttle, blast their cargo bay open and just smash them. Or if the enemy ship is MUCH smaller than yours you just swallow the shutta. You're limited to one point of ingress in hammer, but you make up for that with heavy use of explosives at the initial choke points. Provided your command allows you to take that risk of course. Defending against it… well to be honest I've never defended against hammer style; my ships were always bigger than any Reb ship. My assumption however, based on my somewhat copious military experience, is that you CANNOT allow the initial point of attack to fall. Fixed fortifications, heavy crew weapons, and a willingness to "go down with the ship" would be recommended.

Breach style is when you're in a more even battle, you take a shuttle, or more likely shuttles, (or spike craft if you have them) and launch to any point on the enemy's ship. Then you blow a hole in it, get a good seal and charge in; easy peasey, mailoorun squeezy.

A spike shuttle was a prototype we played around with for a while. It was modelled on the old separatist boarding craft, and would punch its way directly in the hull with its pointed nose, create a seal and the open up and disgorge the can of whoop- _sheb_. It's a lot like an ancient ballistic missile but with troopers instead of explosives. Ultimately, we never used them much; the landing works just fine for clankers, but it tended to do a bit of bodily harm to its occupants when they were flesh and blood types. Also, His Majesty's enemies rarely had any ships worth taking, so on the balance not an effective use of funds.

Breach was the trickiest style to defend against because you never knew where the enemy might strike, you might get as much as two minutes of warning (if they were a slow-moving boarding team) and as little as zero seconds if they were any good at it (or again if they had spike craft). Whoever was in the general area of a breach would most likely be spaced, and that would be the signal to lock down the bulkheads in that area and begin to throw reinforcements at it. A good breach crew can anticipate this and just keep spacing their enemies with timed detonations. Yet another reason I hate fighting on ships.

Lastly, and worstly, is "naked" style, which I've only done once and would very much like to not repeat. The old boys learned this one during the clone wars and it was more of a surprise tactic than anything else. You'd swap out your boots for mag-soled ones, make sure your O2 was topped off and then pray that all the seals on your kit were still good. Then you'd take a walk outside.

You'd form up on the side of the boat and then _leap the gulf_ to the enemy boat. Obviously, you'd have to be pretty close for this to work, and if you didn't time it right you were going to be sucking vacuum. But if you got it all right then you'd be on the enemy ship, with them none the wiser.

You don't defend against this style because only a lunatic does this with any frequency. I suppose if you somehow _knew_ they were going to use it against you could throw your own mag-boots on and just duke it out on the outside of the ship. At least you'd have cover that way.

That's the main problem with shipboard fighting; no cover. It's a battle of intersections and hallways, poking your head around corners and firing at the enemy until they ran. Then trying to take the next intersection while they took pot shots at you from behind their corner. Covering fire is helpful for this, but of course I couldn't use Zeetha because she'd do more damage to the ship than anything short of a thermal-detonator.

Anyway, the Balmies had seized a few frigates and a star destroyer, which apparently, our navy dogs were NOT tracking when we jumped into the system. Seeing the pair of our heavy cruisers, the shuttas decided they would make an excellent addition to their little fleet and decided to make a go of it. How the slagging task force commander didn't realize that a _friendly_ vessel is unlikely to launch a dozen boarding shuttles is something I'll never know. Mostly because he died in the first few minutes of the assault.

The battalion was staged up in our shuttle bay going over last minute mission briefs and shuttle-prep when the warno went off. That klaxon noise is never a good sign, and when it's preceded by the sound of multiple explosions just aft of where you're standing it's a double bad sign. They knew right where to hit us of course, what with the shipyards of neighbouring Kuat being populated mostly by the Balmies' extended family.

From what I heard later, dirtside, they crippled our sister ship, _The Reliant_ , and took out the command bridge on _Imperator_ in the initial salvo. This is one of the many reasons the legion has its own communications channels and tactical systems. Also, we'll be damned if we're going to be dependent on the navy for anything more than we _have_ to be. Our saving grace was that with the bridge mostly slagged their slicers couldn't control or shut down all the bulkheads. If'n they had, we'd have all been trapped in the shuttle bay, and a hell of a lot slower to respond. But as it was, we were all congregated and combat ready in our shuttle bay and were able to roll out to deal with the boarding action pretty quickly.

It went on a while, like I said earlier, hallway to hallway, choke point to choke point. Even with blaster fire all around it gets a bit tedious, just the same battle drill over and over again, your brain goes a bit numb… until somebody makes a mistake. I don't know whether the enemy just got in a lucky shot or he stood out in the open a beat to long but one of my squad, Jomb, who was a bit new, took a bad hit right in the knee. He's screaming bloody murder through the whole squad's net and Sgt Ripper goes out there to get him, to drag his dumbass back to cover.

Personally, I hope that there _was_ some sort of brilliant sniper on the other side because I'd hate for it to have gone down this way to just a lucky shot. I can still see it if I close my eyes. I'm behind a corner, left side of the hallway, trying to give covering fire, missing Zeetha something terrible at this point. Jomb goes down screaming a bit forward of my position falling in the middle of the hallway clutching his knee. Sgt Ripper calls "all front" which is the sign for everyone to rapid fire at the enemy in order to suppress him. He gets to Jomb, grabs him by the strap under his back plate to haul him to cover. He takes a single step, and takes a round right to the back of the bucket.

It was quiet, even Jomb stopped screaming in pure shock. You just didn't kill one of the old boys; at least not like that (and they hadn't but we didn't know that till later). In the quiet I heard one of the Balmys let out a laugh, a sharp braying "HA" and everything went red.

I howled in pure fury and charged out of cover, the rest of my squad following five steps behind me. It was a stupid thing to have done, but Sgt Ripper, well he was like a father to me by then, and obviously, I have issues with losing father figures.

We stormed over that pocket of enemy, firing wildly till we closed to melee range. Then I found that motherkriffer who laughed and I buried the buttstock of my weapon in his face. He went down, squealing like an Ugnaught, and I put two rounds in his head to finish the deal.

I was just lucky that the Balmy's weren't professionals. Stupid charge like that, would have gotten the lot of us killed if'n they'd kept their heads about them and just put as many rounds downrange as possible. It _was_ a really stupid thing to have done. You don't just break battle drill because the NCO in charge goes down. You have a chain of command for a reason, and we tried to drill that into new troopers' heads as hard as we could. But it was always a bit of a "do as I say, not as I do" thing for me. I _hate_ losing troopers, and Sgt Ripper, he was always the one saving us. From mad-eyed Lasats or a Droideka that rolled right into the centre of your formation or from your own personal kriff-ups. Sgt Ripper GAVE a shit about you; and he did his damnedest to make sure you would make it to your next liberty.

My only real excuse for what follows next was that the chain of command wasn't as ingrained then as it would be in later years. It was the whole old boy/new kid divide I suppose; they led we followed. Technically I think Tarvek was supposed to be in charge at this point. But as we stood there, our immediate goal of killing the hell out of these fraggers achieved, there was a bit of a pause as we caught our breath. Normally Sgt Ripper would be comming up higher to send a sit-rep and call for the nearest field medic for the wounded. But obviously, he wasn't calling anyone at the moment, and in that second my time as squad leader at Camp Cody took over.

"Tesh, com the medic and see to those two" I said, "Four and four face out" I gestured right and left. We were at a T-intersection in the ship and doctrine called for us to hold at uncleared halls until we verified our status with higher. I tuned my internal com to the company command net "Charlie 7 this is AS-0091 holding at point 0175, scope is green, waiting for the word."

I suppose that statement alone requires a bit (or possibly a lot) of an explanation at this point. I was currently attached to the 3rd platoon of Charlie company in the 6th battalion of 1st Regiment of the 1st brigade of the 646th Legion. This is obviously a bit of a mouthful and you really never worried about the whole thing unless you were doing a PCS (personal change of station) or you were filling out paperwork.

To give an idea of the scope of this engagement realize that they had only sent the 1st _Regiment,_ in this wave. 1st-4th battalion were on _the Reliant_ , and 5th-8th were with me on _Imperator_. I'd been in 3rd platoon of Charlie company my whole career at this point, the whole battalion having been shuffled around from different regiments and brigades and legions.

Anyway, I was calling "Charlie 7" which is code for the company 1st Sergeant, the company's senior NCO. "Charlie 6" would be the company commander, but nobody wanted to talk to that prat anyways. I don't know why they're always the "6 and 7" probably something buried way back in military tradition, but the reason for the code was in case some kriffer had tapped your communications. You don't want to give away the location of your command team, under any circumstances. If they get shot down you can adapt, obviously, but it takes time to get things sorted and in that gap people get killed.

"AS-0091" is my battle roster number, having to do with my shipping out date, and that stays with you forever. I'll always be AS-0091 and there will never be another. Those of you who are mathematically inclined realize this only gives you a potential of 6,760,000 possible roster numbers; but once they hit that benchmark they started adding decimal places to the FULL number. Not that you ever needed to use them, the galaxy is a big place, and I never ran into another AS-0091 (of any decimal place) in all my years of service.

The rest is simple, we were at "point 0175" which was maybe two or three levels below the command deck. A "green scope" means we had no immediate contacts and the "word" we were waiting for was just the go ahead to proceed.

The response was immediate. "Where's ripper" came 1SG's voice (don't ask me how I knew it was him, you could just tell). "Down" I replied, glancing over at Tesh, who was over with the now weeping Jomb and the still unresponsive Sgt Ripper. "Bad?" he asked. This generally wasn't procedure, to ask over the net like this, where anybody monitoring could hear it. I admit I got a bit choked up at this point. "Ba- Back of the head 1SG" I said holding it in as best I could. "Right. Proceed to point 0017, your back is clear" he said. So, we proceeded left at the T, after the medics got there of course.

I was in shock for a while there, the orders I gave were pure reflex and muscle memory. After it wore off, which was the next time we took contact and a blaster bolt sizzled past me so close I could feel it through my bucket, I finally figured out how to monitor the company net and my own squad net at the same time. 1SG yelling at people in my right ear, my squad shouting in my left. There's a trick to it, and you could talk on one freq (frequency) by turning your head to the left or to the right. In later years, I'd monitor as many as 8 different nets and talk to them all at different angles of my helmet.

We fought and blasted our way to 0017 which turned out to be right below the secondary bridge. The same secondary bridge currently occupied by Rebs. The same Rebs trying to slice into the command console so they could vent us into space. Naturally we were eager to meet them.

Normally our standard kit has some minor explosives for security door breaching, but nothing strong enough to go through the ship bulkhead. Lucky us they'd issued us some detonite charges before we rolled out.

Looking back now I can see that this might have been a defining moment for me. The current plan called for us to set all the charges in the centre of the ceiling to blow a breach point for us to attack through. We'd have to use our grappling hooks and climb our happy _shebs_ into the centre of the bridge while letting stars knew how many Rebs make holes in us.

Yeah, our breach would be at the same time as another team came through the actual door, but we were still in for a hell of a fight. Normally I'm all FOR a fight, but it struck me that this was going to get me and my squad very dead, very quickly with very little chance of success. So, I did what I have become very good at doing, I played dumb.

Someone once said "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission." I like to think that whoever that was, they were a non-commissioned officer somewhere with shitty officers. My orders were to "use high explosives to create a vertical breach point in or around point 0017." To my mind "in or around" gave me a hell of a lot of flexibility with my placement of the charges. So instead of a big clump in the centre I had the guys place 'em in smaller groups near where we figured the undersides of the bridge consoles would be. My idea was that the explosions would frag up the Rebs we knew would be trying to slice into them.

This ran the risk of destroying the consoles as well, but I saw that as the Navy's problem, not mine. They got us into this mess, and the legion would get them out but we'd do it our kriffing way. Perhaps that attitude is why we don't get along?

So, with a little effort, and coordination with the other two squads about to breach the main door, we set off our charges. "Unfortunately," (with all possible sarcasm) the breach points were far too small for us to personally enter the secondary bridge from below. However from what the boys upstairs told me later it didn't matter much because the charges killed or wounded about 75℅ of the Rebs before they even got through the door. Yeah most of the consoles were fragged up too (detonite is no joke) but again, not my problem.

I suppose I might have got in trouble for that, had most of _The_ _Reliant's_ general officers not been dust in the solar wind, but I didn't. From the legion's perspective, I'd done great. "exercising initiative by taking appropriate action in the absence of orders" is the term and was prominently featured on the memorandum that battle-field promoted me to corporal the next day.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER 10**

 _"_ _Bad times come. Sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly. Nobody asks for bad times to come your way, but what matters is how you change with the times. You can curl up and whimper, or you can lick your wounds, get back up, and punch the bad times right in the nose."_

Being a corporal sucks. I doubt there's anyone who served who would disagree with me, especially those of us who've had the "privilege" to personally achieve the rank. You're a non-commissioned officer so you really can't be "friends" with the lower enlisted. You're also the most junior of the NCOs which means you get very little respect, and ALL of the shit taskings, from the more senior NCOs. It pissed me off something fierce back then, but I can see why it was like that now. What did I think I knew about anything when I was 22? The rank doesn't magically give you new and wondrous slagging insight into the hearts of officers and enlisted. You're just you, with more dwang to be responsible for. Also, the pay rise isn't great.

I was the only non-clone section leader in the battalion at the time, not to mention the only corporal, and from what I found out later the command team seriously considered shuffling some people around so that I wouldn't be. But staffing, due to casualties, was already becoming a problem. So, we made a go of it. I think it went well anyway.

So anyway, after we shook off the boarding parties we were left with two nearly crippled warships in orbit and an already battle damaged regiment. The wisest course of action would have been to turn our happy- _shebs_ around and come back later at full strength. It has been my experience however that officers _hate_ doing things that make sense. Making too much sense was very likely a crime punishable under ICMJ (imperial code of military justice).

So instead of the smart choice we decided to blast our way through, LAND our ships on the fragging planet and commence with the _sheb_ -kicking. I do understand nobody wants to go home a loser, but it was ridiculous. My guess is that with the task force commander being dead some piddly little junior Navy dog was going to have to take responsibility for this mess if'n we'd turned back. Taking responsibility in this instance probably meant a firing squad. So, on we went, through hell and high gravity, to pacify Balmorra.

That was a hell of a ride, let me tell you. Nothing like taking flak going through atmo to get your blood pumping. Normally space battles are so quiet, but this was anything but. The ship shuttering and jumping, electrical panels blowing out with the heat stress. I think the ship took more damaged going down to the planet than it did from enemy fire. Then we hit the ground running.

Balmorra has guns, LOTS of guns. It's also the birthplace of the Walker, the Hopper, the T-7 and most artillery pieces. Lucky for us merely having guns doesn't make you proficient in their use. That was our real advantage at first; we were better trained tactically and strategically than the civilian population, just not better armed. That being said it was a pretty brutal campaign, lots of casualties, on both sides.

We started with the liberation of Bis City, the capital of the planet at the time. Surprisingly not too difficult. The city was mostly administrative drone types, artisans and white collar workers, most of whom were glad to see us. Of course, there were a few members of the service industry who decided it would be fun to get shot.

I remember a particularly loud mouth coffee shop barista who launched into a speech about liberty and equality and some other such rot before throwing a detonator at us. The idiot armed the thing first _then_ started yammering at us; blew himself up somewhere in the second paragraph of his speech. At least I didn't have to listen to the whole damned thing.

After the city was back under control things became _more_ difficult. It was an interesting experience, being on the side with less firepower. It makes you appreciate how bad things usually sucked for rebel forces. Fighting a Walker on foot is no fun at all. Good learning experience though. I already knew the strengths of all our weapon systems but got a real appreciation for all the weaknesses too. The joints on the Hopper's legs are the weakest point of the thing. It also doesn't do well with moving terrain (landslides and such). But the kneecaps were the place to shoot; if I overcharged Zeetha I could take em out with a few good shots.

There WAS some rumbling among the sergeants about having a section chief use the big gun. Typically, the auto-gunner is one of the mid to lower ranking members of a squad. But I was never ordered to stop, so I kept on using her, probably because I was fragging amazing with her.

Walkers are pain in the arse, which was trouble on Balmorra, but before and after has saved my life innumerable times. Their biggest weakness is against CAS (close air support) which of course we had very little of, the fighter hangar bays having been blasted pretty hard in the space ambush. Lucky the rebs didn't have any CAS either. Other than that, you want to use missiles on the neck of the beast right where it meets the head. I've heard people claim that a good sniper can put a high-powered bolt through the vision visor but I'll believe that when I see it. Although I can testify that the walkers own turbolaser can do it if the Jedi are involved.

The whole thing was just such a patchwork campaign, no solid plan, no big overarching strategy. Our biggest concern was trying to capture supply points and arms warehouses to resupply ourselves. Maybe upgrade our weapons systems but mostly just to deny the resources to the rebs.

I think the problem was that in the low-supply environment every individual unit developed a hoarder mentality. If YOU captured a Walker you sure as slag weren't giving to some OTHER unit. So instead of having a battalion of walkers in the regiment each company might have one or two or none. When your force is equipped so non-uniformly it's hard to get a standardized strategy in place. Same went for every other form of supply. Food, water, UF-8 were all in high demand everywhere. So, your supply guys would trade amongst themselves with sometimes _interesting_ results. There was a whole month we spent out in the dust where all we had to eat were meiloorun fruits. That's it, meilooruns. Played hell with our digestive systems. Never found out what we got in return for THAT little trade.

But as I said it was a long, slogging campaign, almost a cycle and a half. Sgt Ripper came back about six months after we hit dirt; he'd needed a whole skull replacement which I understand is a tricky bit of surgery. It was lucky we took the city so quick, that kind of business needs a full hospital.

But in that six months I lost four of my guys. Jombe, the guy who got shot in the knee on the _Imperator_ , was first. He dived on a grenade while we were on patrol the second week in Bis City. I know he felt that Sgt Ripper was his fault, which was stupid, but he saved my life and half the platoon's as well. first bit of paperwork I ever filled out as an NCO was his posthumous Silver Sun with V device. I lost Setch and Frin'l to IDF (indirect fire) about a month later. But worst of all I lost Tarvek.

The stupid kriffer broke cover throwing a det charge on a Hopper's belly and when the thing went up a piece of shrapnel sheared his right arm off just below the shoulder. He survived, but he opted for the medical discharge instead of the combat replacement and reenlistment. Arsehole.

But he came from money anyway. His prosthetic is way better than mine, synth skin and everything. We still laugh about it when I visit sometimes it because when the hopper blew and took his arm off he stumbled a bit but kept running. He didn't even realize he'd lost the slagging thing till he got back to the trench. Then, he tried to run back out and get it. "That's MY fragging arm, nobody gets it but ME" he roared. Shell shock and combat stims are a hell of a mix.

He wouldn't sit still and let the medics look at him, so I called "all front" and I rolled my happy _sheb_ out there and got it for him. I dropped the slagging, smoking thing in his lap when I got back. He took one look at it, said "Oh. Good." then passed out. Arsehole. At least, I've got somebody to buy me drinks whenever I'm on Brentaal.

A few weeks after that Sgt Ripper finally came back, and stars was I glad to see him. The whole time I was in charge it felt like I was treading water, my head barely above the surface of the waves. Not that I'd ever been swimming before, biggest pool of liquid I'd ever been in was a bacta tank at that point.

Anyway, I expected, half hoped, that I would get downgraded back to private then. Leadership did not come naturally for me. I've seen troopers come in and be able to inspire men to follow them into hell within 15 minutes, real natural born leaders. But that's not me, I had to learn it. It's a skill like anything else, it requires practice and a good role model to emulate. Personally, I've always been a bit suspicious of those _natural_ leader types. Charisma is all well and good but you need knowledge and experience to make it useful. Otherwise you're just going to get people killed.

But I didn't get downchecked. Sgt Ripper just made me his second, stuck me in the fire team leader slot and we rolled on. The next year was alright, about four months after we got Ripper back 2nd battalion captured an automated drop ship plant and we started getting air support. Finally, the damned Navy started to pull their weight.

Pretty soon after that it was less conventional warfare, more what we were used to, us vs guerrillas. Lots of explosive traps. For a few months one little group was putting explosives in air-lorries and droids and sending them up to the edges of our FOBs (forward operating base) to detonate. VBIDs and DBIDs (vehicle and droid borne improvised explosives) were a constant problem through most of my career but this was the first time I'd seen them.

The droids were the real problem; if you see a speeder flying at you with nobody in it you don't have to be a genius to know it's trouble. But a protocol droid? Nobody expects that to blow up, not the first time anyway. The only warnings you had were that they looked like hell and their vocabulators were all slagged. So, if it was ugly or it couldn't talk, you shot it. Quickly.

Stars I remember that first month they stared using them. You'd lose a trooper a day, minimum, and the real secondary effects were that we all got _real_ paranoid. If it wasn't us we'd shoot it, and sometimes if the privates got real jumpy, they'd shoot at YOU too. Nothing like coming back from a 36-hour patrol and having a gate guard open up on you because he thought you were a droid. We didn't have any white-on-white (friendly fire) fatalities in my company, but it was a close thing a couple of times.

But to this day I can't stand droids, at least the humanoid shaped ones anyway. I won't have them in the house, drives my wife nuts. But I'll take her nagging over the screamers those kriffing things give me. Bunch of lurking metal shadows, clanking and buzzing lurching their way to me. Kriffing things. I'll take a little mouse droid any day, but the last time somebody brought a protocol droid to my house without warning me first I was up and had my vibroknife through its motivator before I realized I'd left my chair.

Finally, FINALLY the planetary governor declared the rebels defeated (again defeated in this context means under control) and we got the frag out of there. Our new home was the _Liberator_ freshly forged from just down the lane in Kuat and christened in the Balmoran atmosphere. I was told she was state of the art, the Navy boys seemed to like her but she looked pretty much the same to me. Same Zoo, same armsroom, same bulkheads.

The real difference to me was that I was now an NCO, and instead of doing the normal boumashit, I was making others do it. I'll tell you, a year and a half of combat leadership really doesn't prepare you for all the little inane tasks and duties you have to perform in shipboard garrison as an NCO. All the annoying little duties that normally had been Sgt Ripper's job? Now all mine. Dwang always rolls downhill.

Performance counselling, inventory inspections and disciplinary action, all mine. I barely had time to make it to the section's unarmed combat practice (we actually had the whole company doing extra by then). Imagine fighting and laughing and generally taking the piss out of a bunch of your friends for a few years then being told you have to be a hard ass. It's not fun, there's a serious adjustment period between lower enlisted and NCO. In later years, any trooper who made it to NCO got an immediate transfer to, at the very least, a new company. Makes it easier to adjust from led to leader.

But we didn't do that back then, clones never had that problem I guess. But I _did_. Luckily as it turns out I am a complete arsehole, and had absolutely no problem kicking the ever-living slag out of any trooper who tried me. Which is why I made a _point_ of never missing unarmed combat practice. If someone HAD gone gungan in the head I took the opportunity at next practice to "give them some pointers." Coincidentally these "pointers" often put them in the med bay for a day or two. I was very good; Sgt Ripper, who I now got to call just "Ripper" in private, was the only one who could keep up with me, but he was getting old.

When I'd joined back in '34 (that's 19 BBY) you could see that the old boys were getting old. Now in mid '39 they all had grey in their hair and a few were going deaf. Still fantastic soldiers but they were beginning to decline physically. Mentally they were all still there, thank the Emperor. That particular tragedy wasn't due for a few more years.

Other than having to kick a few more _shebs_ than usual it was the same old boring shipboard garrison life, with a few minor exceptions. I had my own room for one. Stars above that alone was worth every bit of boumashit I had to put up with.

Your own space, and privacy, were always hard to come by as a private (pun not intended). You were always sleeping in the bays, and always working in groups. Being alone was a privilege. NCOs had _privacy_ and it was glorious. I spent my first night in ship sitting up with the lights on, just because I could. I did whatever little thing came into my head without the fear of waking anybody up. Kriffing glorious.

Also, you no longer had to be accounted for every second of every day. I could leave the zoo, go to the Navy's commissary (which was always better stocked than ours). I could also go and use their DFAC, which again always seemed to have a better class of food, AND better a class of _company_. You still weren't allowed past L bulkhead of course, but if a Navy gal was willing, and surprisingly quite few were, you could find yourself a fair amount of dates in your liberty time. It was a lot like reception, you kept it casual because you never knew when the dwang would hit the fan and one or the other of you would get transferred or deployed, or dead. Just the way it was.

The key was respect. You treated her right, didn't go bragging to your boys about it afterward, and NO public displays of affection. Technically, in many cases it was fraternization and they'd string you up by your bollocks if someone had to take "official" notice. That always struck me as unfair, or at least a double standard. It was always the fella that got hemmed up in that situation, never the lady. Didn't matter who came on to who, in the end it was always the man's fault.

Anyway, the whole regiment was pretty banged up after the Balmorran campaign, we'd had an almost 30% casualty rate overall and some of the battalions were above 50%. So, we did a standard ship rotation, then were slotted for a "safe" deployment to Alderaan.

I can practically see most of you reading this flinch as I mention the "unmentionable." Yes, we destroyed Alderaan, I was on the _Death Star_ at the time and I won't say that I didn't regret the necessity. Moff Tarkin was always the kind of general officer who liked to make "examples."

Alderaan was beautiful. Bet you're surprised I'd say THAT. As a downtown Coruscanti hiver I'd never really payed that much attention to scenery, it was just something got in the way of your blaster bolts. Weather was just something that made your life difficult most of the time. But Alderaan was something else. Mountains and rivers, green valleys and snow fields. It was stunning. Hell, even the architecture of their buildings was incredible; and considering that I normally have no appreciation for art whatsoever that's saying something.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I got a nice long opportunity to do nothing BUT look at scenery. The whole deployment was supposed to be nothing but a showpiece detail. We were there to lick our wounds, look pretty, guard the Imperial government buildings and to march in Empire Day parades, that sort of dwang. I guess nobody told the rebs that this was supposed to be our downtime. Some mother-kriffer tried to assassinate the Imperial Minister of… frag I don't even remember who he was. Whoever he was the rebs didn't much care for him though. So, they set up an ambush, mined roadway on a route he was taking. I was in the lead vehicle of the security detail, we took the hit.

Nothing prepares you for losing a limb. It's not painful in the same way being shot or stabbed is. Your brain just doesn't acknowledge that it happened. A Reb stabs you, or you break a bone during a combat jump you feel it. Your mind sees the damage and says "yep that hurts alright." You get blown up and lose most of a leg… your mind doesn't accept that right away.

I remember going flying, hitting the ground hard, scrambling for cover (they were firing at us from the hillside after the mines went off) and trying to take a knee to see over the wrecked speeder. That's when I realized how fragged I was, because I HAD no knee at that point.

Everything after that is a bit of a foggy blur. There was a lot of pain and shouting, and I remember telling someone not to worry about getting my leg back (guess I still remembered Tarvek's dumbarse at that point). But the next solid memory I have is being in the Hospital in Aldera.

I'd lost my right leg from just above the knee. There were other minor burns and cuts but the bacta took care of them before I even woke up. The Doc gave me the lowdown, left the room and almost immediately in strolled the battalion retention officer.

My initial contract with the Legion was for five years, which was the standard amount at the time. I'd not given my approaching ETS date (end term of service) much thought. Forward thinking, like the kind you do on the five to ten-year scale, was not something I did very well at this point. I was young and stupid; can you blame me?

But anyway, the retention officer laid out my options at this point. I could medically retire, I'd be given the salary for the rest of my term of service, as well as a bonus based on the degree of my disability. He "helpfully" gave me a cost estimate of a civilian prosthetic at this point, noting "sadly" that my estimated severance package most likely wouldn't cover all of it.

Or, and this he said with a blinding smile, I could reenlist for another five-year term and the Empire would give me a new leg for _free_. He also helpfully noted that at the ten-year mark I could retire, begin to draw a small pension AND (and this is what would eventually sell me) a land grant on the planet of my choosing.

I asked him if I could think about it, which was surprisingly non-impulsive for me. He nodded, gave me a friendly but slightly sad smile and said that I "mustn't wait too long." He gave me his comm-number and strolled out to go con some other fool. Stars, but I've met used speeder salesmen less smooth than that smarmy shutta. Honestly all I could think of doing was asking Ripper at this point, and as usual he came through for me.

He showed up about an hour after the retention guy left, closed the door and took off his helmet. I told him everything the doc and the retention officer said and then asked "What do you think?" He just looked at me and said "Do you have a plan?" All at once I realized that no, I had NO plan, no real useful civilian skills and no real _desire_ to function in the civilian world. "Shit" I said. "Yeah, got us by the short hairs" he said shaking his head.

That, I think, was the first time I really felt like I had been _accepted_ by the old boys. Ripper hadn't said "they got YOU by the shorties" it was "US." The implication being that we were the same, with no exit strategy from the legion and no real desire to use one if we had it. I wanted to ask what he would do when he got out, but I thought that now wasn't the time.

"You fail to plan, you plan to fail" we used to say in the Legion. It's very much a part of the culture, you make plans. Sure, you have to be ready to change the plan at a moment's notice, but you always HAVE a plan. Any vet of my era is always a bit of a nag about planning. When, where, what and how many are essential bits of information, so be prepared for us to ask those kind of questions… repeatedly. Doesn't matter what the op is, assaulting a fortress or planning a weekend get-away, we want details.

There really wasn't much more to talk about after that. Later, Ripper and I would talk more about that land grant retirement program. The Emperor had made the senate approve the bill earlier that year and had made sure the clone troopers we included in it. It turned out Ripper already had his eyes on a little chunk of dirt way out in the mid rim. You've probably heard of Naboo I bet. Fuckin' Naboo, there's a shite-show if ever there was one.


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER 11**

 _"_ _I Jo'es Nuffee, solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Imperial Majesty, Sheev Palpatine, his heirs and successors and that I will as in duty bound honestly and faithfully defend His Imperial Majesty, his heirs and successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies foreign and domestic. I will observe and obey all orders of His Imperial Majesty, his heirs and successors and of the lords, generals, moffs and officers set over me, according to the Imperial Code of Military Justice._ _I shall render such unconditional obedience and as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."_

It was a new oath, cooked up no doubt in some PerMin board room somewhere. But in spite of that it was solid and I liked it. What I didn't like was the shite temporary prosthetic they nailed on me so I could recite the oath standing on my own two "feet."

It was too short. It made me stand a bit crooked with my right hand held up for the oath. But they were insistent I couldn't be fitted with a permanent one till I signed back on. I was insistent that I wouldn't be using a slagging crutch while I did it. So, I memorised the thing, they slapped a glorified peg leg on me and I reenlisted. I asked Ripper to stand by, just in case it looked like I would fall.

Ironically, the man who administered the oath was none other than Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. Who, if those rebel propaganda movies are to be believed, was about the last fragging person qualified to be doing it. Goes to show you never can tell really.

But at the time it felt like a huge honour. He seemed a decent sort, he thanked me for my service and had the little princess give me an Alderaanian peace-lily that she said was from the Queen's very own garden. I was speechless as I recall, I probably muttered something about being thankful, and honour or duty, or something like that. But all in all, it was a nice little PR stunt for the Senator. Couple of nice Holos for the next galactic news cycle.

So yeah, I met Princess Leia. She was fragging six at the time though. Couldn't believe it when I saw her again on the _Star_ , or the wanted posters, or that fragging holo of her in that metal-bikini. _That_ made me feel old.

Later that week I got a holonet call, from my mum. It was the first time I'd seen her on live feed in almost five years; static text or recorded holo being the standard medium. We'd sent regular data packets back and forth to one another, maybe once a month. At least I had when I was on a ship. Mail on the ground during a combat op is problematic obviously. We just stared at each other for a good minute, neither of us sure how to begin.

I decided to lead with the fact that I'd reenlisted, but she already knew that. "I've already spoken to the ministry of personnel. When are you coming home?" She demanded. I told her I didn't know when, or even if I could. She said that that was nonsense, I had nearly two months of leave due to me and six months of mandatory adjustment time for my prosthetic.

But I was shocked, I'll tell you. Leave it to my Mum to know the regs better than I do. To this day, I've got a sneaking suspicion that when PerMin called to tell her I was hurt she simply demanded I be given time to come home to see her. If I hadn't had so much leave stored up she probably would have demanded that I be given some. She took no shite, not from anyone, did my mum. She'd have probably tried to call His Majesty himself if they'd said no. So of course, I said I'd come back as soon as they let me. If I hadn't, she'd probably have flown herself to Alderaan and marched herself into the hospital.

Leave is an interesting thing in the Legion. Back in the 30s and early 40s you only accrued one day a month. That is to say, for every month you survived you had one day off. Well, you could _request_ time off anyway. It was at the discretion of your commanding officer. Depending on how much time you wanted to use you would have to ask the corresponding person of authority. Trying to use anything under a month meant you just had to ask your Company commander. Between 30-59 days is a Battalion commander. Anything above that has to go all the way to the regimental office. All this being said, leave doesn't do you much good in the middle of a combat operation, you can't just take off your helmet and say "I'm taking leave." There's forms to fill out, and your kriffing officer doesn't _have_ to approve it. Doesn't even really need a reason to say no, it's "at his discretion." But I am giving them a hard time, in my many years I only had one or two officers who were dwang-heads about it. Most of the time any requests that came at a "bad time" were filtered out by the NCOs in the trooper's chain of command.

So, after the harrowing experience of my mum I toned things down a bit and got my major surgical procedure. I finally got my new leg. I went into surgery and they took another cm or two off my thigh and replaced it with the cyborg bits I'd need to interface with the leg itself. It was a simple piece of black durasteel shaped like a thicker version the bones it was replacing, but very strong and highly functional. I've upgraded since then, but I think I still have that original one laying around somewhere. I used to have it sitting next to the shoes by the front door just to startle visitors, but my wife was having none of that.

They also gave me a catalogue of all the different attachments and upgrades I could stick in it. When I could afford them that is, because the legion sure as shite wasn't going to pay for them. But why would they? YOU try justifying external speakers, or neon under-lighting on a prosthetic leg to logistics, see how that works out for you.

After the surgery, I had three months of mandatory physical therapy. A whole leg replacement is a tricky thing to get used to. The weight is all different and if you don't take time to adjust you'll fall right over at anything more than a brisk walk. So, the docs had me walking around in a lot in controlled environments.

After a month of that I was allowed, encouraged actually, to walk around the city and eventually the countryside. It was the first time in what seemed like forever that I could just walk around out of uniform, and just be a person, and believe you me I made the most of it.

I visited public buildings in Aldera, and went for hikes up some of the mountains. It was then I decided that in five years when and if I got out, I would take my land grant there, somewhere on a mountain with a great view. It was a beautiful world, which of course was why Tarkin blew it up. Way I see it the whole thing was a message to the rest of the galaxy. If we were willing to destroy the "jewel" of the core worlds then what chance did a shite hole like Sullust or Mon Cala or even Corellia have? Less than zero.

It was also on one of these hikes I met Mariah. There was this lake, up high in the mountains, crystal clear and quite cold. It was about 8 km from the nearest public transit terminal, so I'd roll out of bed in the morning take the auto-bus to the terminal and hike up it, catch the sunrise. I was trying to learn to swim, just something physical to do as a part of my recovery therapy. I wasn't doing a very good job of it. I remember flailing about, trying remember what the instructional vid had said when there was this… laugh. More of a chortle really, like smoky velvet, and there she was. Somehow managing to look comfortable perched up on a rock overhang, stark naked. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, dark haired and dark eyed, with a body that, should I describe it accurately here, and my wife reads this, I will regret it.

She dove into the lake, perfect form, and offered to show me how it was done. "It" turned out to be a lot of different things, not just swimming. She was a... free spirit, is the best, most polite term I can come up with. She went where she wanted, said what she wanted, DID what she wanted. And for some reason for a little under two months that something was me.

It's a terrible thing, love. I tried, still try, to hold myself back from it. But it seems I always fail, with sometimes disastrous results. But I loved Mariah, didn't take but a half an hour but I was good and besotted. She broke my heart of course, but I won't try and say that I regret my time with her on Alderaan. I had never felt so alive before, just walking with her on that beautiful doomed world.

To this day, I'm not sure if she was a rebel. Believe me I did think about it a bit, Alderaan had made me a bit paranoid and meeting a woman as beautiful as her out of nowhere is incredibly suspicious. Also, I'm ugly as sin, so why a woman like her would give me the time of day is doubly suspicious. It did seem like something she might have tried once or twice just for the experience and then moved on. But she knew what _I_ was and it didn't seem to bother her much. She was a mystery, then and even now. But what I remember best, barring all the _night-time_ activities of course, is that she liked stories. She'd tell me fantastical tales as we would lie outside at night, camping in warmer valleys. She'd point at a star and say "that one is Tatooine" and launch into a tale about Jeorge and the krayt dragon.

I remember I had mixed feelings about that story. My father's name was Jeorge and as the story went on it became very apparent ol' Jeorge of Tatooine was a Jedi. My irritation at this naturally led her to ask, and for me to tell her about my experiences with Jedi. And from there it wasn't a great leap to just talk about all my time in the service.

If she was just pumping me for information she wasn't very good at it. We get training on the kind of questions rebel spies ask. She just had a different perspective, she never wanted to know about the capabilities of our weapons, or tactical doctrine or any of the red flags that would mark her an enemy. She wanted to know about different planets, and what the culture of the legion was like and other things that I'd never even tried to put into words before. Honestly remembering the things, I told her is half of what made me start this foolish project anyway.

We didn't talk a lot in the legion, quiet stoicism was the unofficial policy, and to be honest it's both a weakness and a strength. You shut up and do the job, waiting around to talk about your _feelings_ is counterproductive. But you _can_ get to a breaking point. All the bad dwang gets piled up in the back of your brain and you've got to find some way to let it all out. Most of the time you work it out with violence, but laying there on a blanket next to a beautiful woman is pretty nice if you can swing it.

After I left Alderaan I never saw Mariah again. I was still a bit nervous about getting serious with anyone. I had told her about Leena, and she just laughed that throaty smoky laugh of hers and said I needn't worry, she wasn't after anything but my time and my… well let's just say she grabbed a certain area of my anatomy. She was never shy, was my Mariah. And yes, even after all these years, and three wives, I still think of her as "my" Mariah.

But I don't regret not marrying her. She'd have probably told me to kriff off for one if'n I'd asked. I also think she'd have gotten tired of me eventually, she was never in one place for very long, as I discovered when I went looking for her. Yes, I looked for her, though I never found her. That very flightiness I found so charming on Alderaan has a downside to it you see. It's the hallmark trait of the chronically irresponsible. I suppose I should be grateful she was self-aware enough to know that about herself, but I will never EVER forgive her for abandoning our sons.

It is only through my extreme good fortune, and the diligence of the Imperial medical corps, that I even found out they existed. My genetic profile was on file with the Imperial board of health, logged and filed as part of reception. So, when she skipped out on the bill on Corellia, the hospital, instead of just shipping the twins to an orphanage, ran their DNA against known profiles. Luckier still that I have family on Corellia, but in fairness to her I had probably told her that.

At the time, I was somewhere slogging through a swampy cave on Dathomir and could not be reached. So, my mother had my uncle Toggo, pick the boys up and bring them to Coruscant. Then by all accounts she, and her four brothers, stormed legion HQ with the demand that I be contacted.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit I suppose. I left Alderaan, unaware of my impending fatherhood, back to Coruscant to see mum.

I'd decided to use my leave days during my last few months of rehabilitation, which was allowed. Generally, when you're just "at liberty" you're not allowed to leave the ship or planet your unit is stationed on unless you take leave. Some commanders want you to take leave to leave the garrison area but that's a bit unreasonable.

Either way I was on leave and back on my home turf for the first time in half a decade. Everything seemed smaller, which made sense I suppose. The bio-plex and my own natural continuing growth put me at just over 195 cm so everything WAS smaller. Everything was cleaner too. The dark levels were now a hundred floors below my house, sec-force having been given all the authority and creds they could ever need.

I couldn't help but feel partially responsible for it too. The Empire made my home world safe, clean and bright. So, I hope you'll forgive me if I got a healthy morale boost from seeing it that way. Coruscant was alive; in a different way than Alderaan was, more energetic and vigorous. People moved through the streets with a sense of purpose then.

Or maybe I'm just an old man idealizing and misremembering the past. It's a hell of a lot worse now-a-days of course, worse than it was in the most corrupt days of the old republic. Coruscant never recovered from the riots after Endor and Jakku. The new republic says that their capital shouldn't be on the human home world because they're fostering an "inclusive" society. Which is boumashit, they just don't want to foot the bill to repair the damage. And stars forbid they have to govern on a planet where they have to look out their windows and see the corruption their foolishness creates.

But enough of that, Coruscant was different. I kicked off my shoes, and dropped my duffle in the living room and shouted "I'm home." I heard something break in the kitchen, and a muffled curse. And out popped my mum, wide eyed and pale.

I hadn't told her exactly when I was coming, I thought it would be a nice surprise. She just stared at me for a long moment, then threw herself at me, weeping into my dress uniform, murmuring prayers and curses in _Mando'a_. It's always nice to know that somebody gives a damn that you're not dead.

I think those months you get after a major injury aren't just about physical recovery. You need time to mentally recover too. It's a major blow, losing something as fundamental as your leg and you need time to remind yourself of who you are. Not just WHAT you are, not meat and bone, but the person you are too. I'm still Mad-dog Nuffee no matter how many cybernetics they put in. I got that in my time off, and I damn well made sure any trooper under my care got their time too. If you don't the job WILL break you, snap you into little pieces and scatter you like so much dust in the vent.

The time back home flew by, and in a flash I was packing my bags to RTD. I gave my mum the Queen's peace lily and I never saw her so pleased. Maybe she didn't like Alderaanians so much but a _Queen_ is a different story. I don't know how she did it but she kept that fragging thing alive until the day she died, sitting on a corner table with a holo of me shaking hands with the Senator. She would be significantly LESS pleased with me the next time I came home. My infant sons cradled in her arms, a murderous glint in her eye.

But that was in the future, currently I was taking a shuttle to Corsin to meet up with my battalion already in shipboard garrison on the _Devastator._ They'd already been reassigned to the 501st under the command of His Lordship, Darth Vader.


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

 _"_ _Bravery isn't being unafraid. Only fools aren't afraid. Bravery is the execution of one's duty in spite of fear."_

The _Devastator_ holds the rare distinction of being one of the few ships to officially carry the flag of Lord Vader. I doubt very much that I need to explain who _he_ was, and he was very much in residence on board the ship.

When I arrived aboard the whole ship was seemed to be on high alert every minute of every hour of the day. It seemed as though we were expecting a parade, and we had to be inspection ready at all times. I was ordered to shine my armour more times the next few months than all the times previous to that (excluding Camp Cody of course). Our officers practically _lived_ in a perpetual state of panic, they seemed like they were suffering more combat stress than I ever did. But those of who actually worked for a living, we never saw much point to panicking. Either he'd kill us, or he wouldn't, and there wasn't much we could do about it. But in point of fact in all my years I never saw Lord Vader execute a trooper. As a matter of fact, he had a tendency to execute officers who got us killed. Downright _doted_ on us. But until we launched the shuttle to Dathomir I only saw him the once.

He had apparently asked the battalion CSM (command sergeant major, the highest ranking nco in the battalion) which company had the best close quarters fighters. Sergeant major, and this is hearsay of course, had immediately said "Charlie company." So, Lord Vader just strolled his way into the zoo to see us practice.

I'd been working hard to get myself back into fighting trim since I'd gotten back, lot of cardio A LOT of weight training. Zeetha wasn't going to carry herself after all. That day I had Ripper and 1SG and a good half the company in the gym with me, helping me modify my "style" (such as it was) to make best use my new, and improved, leg. I use the word _style_ very loosely, it wasn't anything as formal as what most people think of as a martial arts style. But I'd never used any kicking, which usually features prominently in any "style" and would be extraordinarily deadly with the several kilos of powered durasteel that were now my leg. We were debating whether high kicks were even possible in full kit, when his lordship walked in.

"Comp-any, atten-SHUN!" immediately we all went rigid as boards and Lord Vader glided into the room, the only sound his breathing. And that voice, it was like our voice modulators, but deepened a dozen octaves and just… well all I can say is that those boumashit movies my grandchildren dragged me to got THAT right anyway. You felt that voice in your bones.

 **"** **First Sergeant, I have been informed that your company is the finest on board this ship?"** he made it a question, daring top to give him a reason to doubt it. "We are, my Lord" 1SG said, voice totally without inflection. **"We shall see. Bring your commander to my briefing room this evening. I have a special assignment for you."** With that he turned, black cape swinging behind him and left the gym as quickly as he had entered. Lord Vader had this way of walking very quickly, he never ran anywhere but his walk made everyone else practically jog to keep up. Probably because he was so fragging tall.

I swear not a one of us started breathing again until Lord Vader had left the room. 1SG waited for about ten seconds then followed after him. By unspoken agreement the whole practice broke up after that, the question of adding kicking to my repertoire would have to wait till another day. If we survived to see it.

Being chosen for a special assignment like this was rare. It was always dangerous, and usually the unit chosen would either end up dead or be given highest honours, or sometimes both. It wasn't a Lord Vader thing, just a "special assignment" thing. High risk, high reward.

I had no real feelings about Lord Vader, other than the standard abject terror he inspired in everyone the first time you met him. He was in charge, we do what we're told. "I don't ask questions." A good mantra for survival. Usually you can get a general sense about your commanding officers. You develop opinions about them right quick, and very rarely are they good opinions. But his Lordship gave you nothing to go on, like trying to take the measure of a droid, or maybe more appropriately a Star Destroyer. So, initial impressions being what they were, I neither liked nor disliked him. That all changed however before we even hit atmo.

We were loading up into our shuttles, Lord Vader was going to brief us en route to Dathomir. The company commander went to get on board and Lord Vader, not even looking at him, said **"where do you think** ** _you_** **are going captain?"** This wasn't that tub of lard we'd had before but a pale hooked nose man with and irritating whiny voice. "Muh-my Lord?" He said taken aback. "I must accompany my unit!" **"Very well."** Lord Vader said **"you may come,"** the captain got one foot in the shuttle before he finished **"if you feel that** ** _I require_** **your assistance to lead a COMPANY of Stormtroopers?"** That stuttering schutta went whiter than my helmet and practically RAN back down the ramp. "Guh-good luck my Lord!" he squeaked. Shivering with fear, looking like a fool, he threw up a feeble salute to the departing shuttle. **"We do not require luck."** Lord Vader said to us. We nodded silently, smiling like idiots in our helmets. Once you got to know him a bit you realized that his Lordship DID have a sense of humour. It black as vacuum and dryer than desert, but still extant.

I leaned over to Ripper to crack some joke at the Captain's expense over the internal comms. Lord Vader looked RIGHT at me and said, over our INTERNAL comm net **"excuse me corporal, but require your attention for my briefing."** I suppose it was the least violent way he could have informed us he was linked into the tac-net. But it was still a shock, and I went as still as a Cholla in headlights, I think the whole company did. But if he was angry, he let it pass and launched into the mission brief.

It seems ISB and Naval Intelligence had uncovered evidence suggesting a known terrorist was holed up somewhere on Dathomir. We never got the name of course, but we got a Holopic of the zabrak in question. I figured it would be easy, how many red, tattooed zabrak, with full lower body cybernetics could there be?

Spelunking is the word you use when you explore caves in your off time. Lot of poncy kriffers who spend their leisure time out of doors love it I hear. What we did on Dathomir wasn't spelunking, we called it "gravedigging" instead. I'd already had some experience with caves back on Sullust. Hell 75 to 80% of the action I saw on that damned planet was underground. But those caves were different, stone and stalagmite, very solid, big enough to park a star destroyer in. Dathmiri caves were all muddy clay and roots, very unstable. Also, they stank. You couldn't smell it with your kit on but when you got back to garrison and popped your top you certainly could. Like rotten leaves and fetid water.

The only time I ever felt trapped by my armour was on Dathomir. You had to keep your head about you or you'd get it caught on an exposed root or low ceiling. You bump your head, take your eyes off the prize and when you did THAT'S when they'd strike.

The Dathmiri, as it turned out, were all, by-and-large, religious mad men. Religious mad men who HATED the empire for some reason. The mad spike-heads would jump out of nowhere, practically frothing at the mouth screaming "For the Sisters!" (whatever the kriff that meant) and try and gut you. They used the smaller size of their caves to automatically close the distance, effectively denying you the advantage of your blaster and then they'd go to town with a rock or a knife or a vibro-sword if they could get it.

Like a fool, I'd brought Zeetha with me down to the planet. Of course, I really didn't know the type of fighting we'd be doing down there so I suppose I can forgive myself in retrospect. Poor Zeetha. Damnation I STILL miss that gun, but she lasted all of a week down there in that muddy hellhole.

I close my eyes I can still remember it. Down in a cave, the point man had just found some kind of crude wire trap in an adjoining tunnel. Gunny (this is slang for gunnery sergeant, the highest-ranking NCO in the platoon, also called platoon Sgt) had called for EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) and we were setting up a perimeter. There was half a dozen exits off of the main area we were in and I was heading to the largest one opposite side of the cave. I bumped my head on a bit of root hanging off the ceiling and _that's_ when they came for us. His vibro-sword, because of course _I_ got the one who had a sword, cleaved right through Zeetha's kriffing rotor-assembly and into the plasma vent. Luckily for me I was surprised for just long enough to not try and fire her, that probably would have killed the both of us and anyone else within 5m. So instead I just threw Zeetha right at him, 16 kilos square in his jaw. Gave him a nice kick square in the _gett'se_ with my metal leg when he was down too, which to this day is still pretty much the only kicking I use in my armoured fighting "style". It was then I noticed that the whole platoon had gone to bedlam. The madmen had covered themselves in cold mud, which threw off our sensors and hid themselves in the walls of the cave. It looked like the cave itself had risen up to try and kill us. Blaster bolts flying everywhere, vibro-blades flashing, everyone bloody screaming their heads off. One of the shuttas had taken out the portable lighting we brought so we were down to the lowlight sensors in our helmets.

It's something primal being down there in the dark, fighting hand to hand. I guess it's how we used to do it millennia ago before we ever even had cities let alone FTL. But it comes back to you, like something half remembered from a long time ago. In the moment, you don't have time for fancy psychology though, you don't _think_ you just DO. Or you die, that's your only other option. Oddly I don't get any screamers about Dathomir, you'd think that I would, especially considering what happened at the end of the tour, but I don't. I've said before that the worst things to deal with are the ones you can't engage with. Traps and sabotage and the like. All that hand to hand fighting was something you could really get a grip on, literally.

So, I grabbed that sword out of Zeetha, gave the spike-headed shit a poke in the neck and roared my way into the fray. Still got that slagging sword you know, it's mounted on the blistering wall behind me as I write this. Unfortunately, I wasn't great with it, the closest we ever got to swordsmanship at Camp Cody was with standard issue riot batons. That training was good enough to keep me from slicing my own foot off, but on the whole, I still prefer knives. Ripper was the best, I'm a close second.

The problem in engagements like this is that we're trained to make the best use of our armour. You set your shoulders and lean into blaster fire a bit. Despite what you see in those new republic vids, you've got a pretty good shot of shrugging off some fire. This DOES NOT work on melee weapons, you need a different type of armour and a different type of training for that. Problem is, is that on the whole the Legion didn't see close quarters combat a lot. I saw quite a bit of it, whence why I was there in the first place, but the LEGION didn't'. Not often enough to roll out an entirely different set of armours and tactics anyway. I don't blame them, it's a cost efficiency thing. And honestly until Endor I really never felt the lack. I'll talk about Endor later of course, I'll need a stiff drink or three first though.

We took a lot of casualties down there on Dathomir, Zeetha was the first but she certainly wasn't the last. Gunny went down in the first skirmish, along with two squad leaders. So, Sgt Ripper stepped in as acting platoon sergeant and I got to reprise my role as squad leader. Honestly 3rd platoon had the best of it, we at least had been doing more hand to hand drills in our off time than anyone else. The truly sad thing is that the old boys took the brunt of the casualties, maybe they were truly starting to slow down, maybe they weren't as adaptable anymore, maybe they just weren't as good at close-quarter fighting (Sgt Ripper being an obvious exception of course). It goes without saying that they still did a hell of a lot better than the officers who came down with us. They lasted about as long as spring on Hoth.

The unit looked real different after 10 months on Dathomir, both visually and tactically. We lost all the spit and polish for one thing, if you've ever seen those holos with the banged-up troopers, maybe a ragged brown serape and a belt full of knives and grenades, that was us. Tactics changed drastically, we requisitioned (reads took without asking) blaster pistols for nearly every trooper. Our heavy weapons guy just had light repeater. Everyone had a knife and at least three grenades a piece, the designated grenadier had upwards of a dozen PLUS thermal-dets. Grenades were always a bit of a gamble in the caves, you never knew what you'd get when you threw them down a dark tunnel. Maybe a dozen kriffing spike-heads would fall out of little pockets in the walls, maybe you'd get nothing or maybe the whole fragging cave would collapse on top of you. Snipers were out, REAL heavy weapons were out, and some of the lads even started taking pieces off their armour so they could squeeze through tight spots, hence the serapes so that you couldn't tell. I personally came down like a hammer when my squad tried to pull that dwang. We're Stormtroopers, we wear fragging armour. Although that might have just been a Mandalorian thing. I won't claim to have had the _resol'nare_ in mind at the time, but it might have had something to do with it. Personally I "borrowed" a plas-melter and put some reclaimed battle steel on my forearms. I was in no mood to get _another_ prosthetic.

It was also the mindset that was different. You always knew that every mission might be your last before then, but on Dathomir it was an ever-present cloud that seemed to hang over you. Nobody cracked up, but that was only because the minute you lost your focus on mission was the minute you lost _everything_. You just passed through the fear of death like a doorway and out the other side. Ripper put it like this, he said "as soon as the mission starts and you hit the ground you're dead. The only thing you've left to do is claw your way back to life." We weren't poets but that was a pretty succinct way of putting it.

The only time you even had the hope that you were coming back from a mission was when Lord Vader came out with you. He would rotate which platoon he would go out with every so often, and almost without fail they would all come back. Watching Lord Vader fight is tough to describe, mostly because it makes you sound like a child describing their favourite action-vid. He was unstoppable, an AT-AT in a 215cm body, a damned hurricane over Manaan and a kriffing rancor with a toothache all rolled into one. When you were with him the fear of death was just _gone_ , and all that was left was a seething mindless anger. Everything was just **"All too easy"** as he was fond of saying.

Unfortunately, we never found the shutta we were looking for. The rest of the battalion, who were garrisoned in the few cities on the planet didn't either. That's not to say we didn't find anything of course. Tonnes of explosives, massive caches of weaponry and stolen military supplies. One of the smallest caves that we squeezed ourselves into led underground to a massive hanger near to full with dropships and the old Delta-7 starfighters. The nightbrothers, as the madmen called themselves, were preparing for a war. A war that never happened, which to my mind is really the best kind of war.

For most of our time on Dathomir the company, logistically speaking, was hanging by a thread. Personnel losses mostly, and that thread snapped near the end of month 10 when we finally found one of those "sisters" the madmen were always screaming about.

The tunnel system the madmen had carved into ground was extensive, and disconcerting. You could go into a massive hole in the ground only to find it dead ending in a few hundred meters. You'd squeeze through a little opening barely big enough to crawl through and it might open up and go on for kilometres. You'd never know till you got there, but it was one of those deceptive ones that we found ourselves in. Lord Vader was with us and he'd decided, using whatever force-borne inscrutable method that he favoured, that this mission would require the whole company. Should have been a giveaway right there, at least I seem to recall thinking something to that effect when he briefed the opord.

The tunnel twisted and turned, branched off and widened considerably until Lord Vader found a door hidden in the side of an unassuming tunnel. I've no idea how he knew, the blasted thing didn't show up on sensors and half of the company marched, or skulked really, past it before he called a halt. I tell you, on my honour, that that damned door was NOT there until he walked over and put his fist through it. Then there it was, standard plasteel door, plain as day, Vader shaped dent in it. This was only the beginning and unfortunately only the _least_ of the weirdness that was to follow.

Lord Vader took a step back and gestured briefly indicating we should proceed. So, we cracked open the door and began clearing hallways, real hallways not cave tunnels. These led us to another storehouse area, only this time the kriffing place was full of dead bodies. We cracked open the seal and immediately our helmets informed us that the room within had temperatures hovering just around 2° C. The room was full of bodies, dead ones, stacked like cargo. I swear to you they were dead, dead as dust. And we checked too, time and time again the kriffers had somehow tricked our sensors so we made damn sure they weren't just in some state of hibernation. We all agreed, Lord Vader included, that they were not. So, we proceeded on down a flight of stairs into a large hexagonal chamber.

In the centre of the chamber was a large stone basin, and from the ceiling poured this green viscous liquid, which also, paradoxically, seemed to be on fire somehow. Behind it sat a pale woman in red spikey robes. She stood up in a flash and _screamed_ at us. That scream, it wasn't sound because our helmets didn't block it out, but it set my teeth on edge, made my bones feel like shattered glass and made me sick to my stomach. The basin seemed to overflow with fog which flowed through the whole room fast as a blink and through the six doors on each wall including the one we'd just come from.

Lord Vader, I'd never seen him move so fast, flung himself at the woman lightsabre out and humming. We moved in closer to try and support him and a few seconds later we heard another scream. Normal sound this time, but no less awful. Then they came boiling out of everywhere, hundreds if not thousands of madmen, wailing and gnashing their teeth, their eyes reflecting that awful green fog. We opened up on them instantly, threw grenades into the mass, but they kept coming no fear in their eyes, no nothing. Pretty soon they were in among us, they had no weapons but with numbers like that it didn't matter. I've no idea how long we fought, time seemed to disappear. I remember 1SG yelling "protect Lord Vader" early on as we formed a protective ring around the two duellists. Later, how much later I don't know, he screamed "The HEAD you have to go for their head!" as the howling lunatics mobbed him and dragged him down. The circle of troopers around Lord Vader grew smaller and smaller as the two duelled one another. The "sister" had found a pair of swords in the same sickening green colour as the fog and when they met Lord Vader's sabre they let off hissing sparks in virulent red and green.

I stabbed with my good hand and blasted with my off. Every once in a while, I'd reach over and grab the man next to me to try and keep him in the circle. I was unsuccessful more times than not. But finally, a gasping cry from behind me told me that the duel was over, I turned just in time to see the "sister" now without arms lose her head to a quick decisive stroke. With her death, there was a minor shuddering shockwave that knocked everyone but Lord Vader down. The… "brothers" didn't get back up again.

The few of us left struggled to our feet, I saw that Ripper had lost his helmet somehow, and had a nasty gash where his left eye should have been. Lord Vader turned off his sabre, looked around and said

 **"** **Well done troopers. Well done."**


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

 _"In echoes and silence, I hear the voices of my fallen brothers._

 _With patience and grace, I tell them to wait._

 _Soon I will join their ranks. But for right now,_

 _all I want is to be home."_

We came to Dathomir with a full company, just over 120 of us. Ten months later we entered from that final cave with 78. Not even two hours later we emerged with 54. 1SG was dead, all the original platoon sergeants were dead. 8 of the original 12 squad leaders were dead. Had we tried to form actual platoons out of the mess I'd likely have been a gunny. But of the 54, 21 were heavily wounded to the point of needing a medivac, which they got. It was the fake leg that saved me. A lot of the mad men that should have just folded up died after you shot them just kept crawling and took you low in the legs where you weren't expecting it. But standard non-cover combat stance, the low ready, puts my right leg towards my direction of fire. So instead of the low-crawlers finding plasteel ablative over soft flesh the few that got that close to me just found just a job lot of metal which I was happy to stomp through their skulls for them. Life lesson: always check for threats in you low and high sectors, never just the standard firing cone.

But sitting there in the transport, mostly unscathed was a truly uncanny experience, one of the oddest in my career. As we lifted out of atmo back to the _Devastator_ it was as though a great and terrible weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I'd felt relief at leaving a combat zone but I'd never felt anything like this before, or since. It was like an invisible hand had been gripping my heart for so long I'd gotten used to it and the sensation of being alive, truly alive for the first time in months was not dissimilar from being drunk. Drunk on being alive. Instead of fighting tears I found myself holding in laughter. I looked over at Ripper, strapped in next to me, a makeshift eyepatch I'd made out of bacta-wrap swaddling his face, and he grinned at me and tried to waggle his eyebrows which made him go pale with pain. Even so it was the first display of genuine human emotion I'd seen from him in a long time. I couldn't hold it in any longer and I burst out laughing, big whooping gut laughter. Soon the whole company, we could all fit on one transport at this point, joined in. We all felt it I suppose, that lifting of a great weight. Only Lord Vader, didn't join in. Didn't try to stop us of course, but didn't join in. You never saw Lord Vader do anything like that, show any outward sign of emotion. Much as I respected him as a soldier and a leader he never showed much sign of being a human being out in public. I suppose that was on purpose, he was more than a man, he was a kriffing symbol. The very avatar of the might of the Empire. Eventually you spent enough time around the man you find out that the "Might of the Empire" did have a personality and a very dry sense of humour but it was buried deep. If those rebel propaganda vids have even an ounce of truth to them I think we can guess why.

When we got back to the ship the whole rest of the battalion had turned out in a sort of impromptu honour guard. Ostensibly to welcome Lord Vader back, but in reality they wanted to give a salute to the remnants of Charlie company.

I remember striding back into the docking bay, the Imperial March playing, supporting Krym, my grenadier who'd lost a largish chunk of his foot and bits of his leg to the madmen. Even he stood a bit straighter, and gave his best impression of a parade ground march as we all strode, marched, hobbled, limped or were carried past our brothers in arms. All blazing white uniforms, blasters at present-arms. Honestly one of my more uplifting memories in the Legion there.

Our reward for service, was considerable. It was always that way with Lord Vader and the 501st. He hadn't said anything more than **"well done"** but you found out what his true appreciation and that of the empire was. Double death benefits for the families of the dead, that's nearly eight hundred thousand credits. That's more than enough to buy a house, send your kids to the academy of their choice or even start a small business. Of course, that's no replacement for a son or daughter, a sibling or parent, and I'd never try to claim that but at least it was _something_. The living, and the dead, all got the Navy Cross from the commander of the _Devastator_ , the Silver Sun with V device (the V is for valour) from the Legion, an automatic promotion AND a substantial hazardous duty bonus in our pay check. Stars, Lord Vader even had Dathomir temporarily declared "a zone outside of imperial control" so the combat bonus, and all our back pay, was tax free. Also because of that we were all awarded campaign medals, not a lot of troopers have the "Dathmiri Restoration" medal on their dress blacks. On top of all that we were informed we would have our choice of duty assignments. Unfortunately, this also meant that Charlie company was effectively dead. High command had decided to replace the whole company with new faces and split the surviving members up into new positions. Not uncommon for a unit with our casualty rate, but a little disheartening all the same. I'd been with the unit for over six years, and while faces came and went, you got used to a certain group mentality. All that would be gone now, and I don't think the loss of my brothers really hit me until after I processed that information. It wasn't just 1SG and a bunch of troopers that died down on Dathomir, it was Charlie company. Sure, some of us were still swinging, but that was just death throws.

All of these honours and privileges would be somewhat dampened by a holo-message a few days later, delivered by no less than Lord Vader himself. We had just sat through a brief provided by the S2 lieutenant (S2 is a staff position regarding informational security) reminding us that we were still under a communications blackout with regards to anything we may or may not have witnessed while serving with Lord Vader. Any communications to or from us would be directly routed through his office.

I'll tell you now what I told the officers later during my debriefing, and anyone else who asked about Dathomir during my tenure in the Legion. "Lord Vader engaged a high value target while we formed a defensive perimeter around him. We were ourselves engaged by a large group of Zabrak religious cultists who were attempting to defend their leader. Said cultists were observed to be experiencing an extranormal state of religious fervour and possible drug use which resulted in an extended pain tolerance. This resulted in a higher than expected loss of material and personnel."

The fact that I passed through a room full of corpses on the way in, and that said room was kriffing _empty_ on the way out is immaterial. The dead DID NOT rise and attack a company of His Majesty's Stormtroopers. That sort of thing DOES NOT slagging happen. Any other opinion would have got me sectioned quicker than a Hoth summer. You can bitch and moan about government transparency and the public's right to information all you like. What good would have come from making a fuss about it? We had our job to do, and we'd have done it regardless of whatever weirdness went on down there.

After the briefing, which honestly was just telling us things we already knew, Lord Vader intoned my name as we were all filing out the room and I stood fast. After the room cleared he said **"this was time-stamped 3 months ago sergeant"** and activated the rooms projector with a wave.

"JO'ES CANDEROUS NUFFEE!" Roared my mother, springing up larger than life from a projector usually used to explain planetary bombardment campaigns. "you will put in for leave IMMEDIATELY and explain… THIS!" on "this" the recorder zoomed out a bit and displayed... my sons, one nestled in my mother's arms the other with my uncle Toggo who was grinning dwang-eating grin if ever there was one. "You are lucky I don't get on a ship out there to Dathoba, or wherever it is, and _kyr'amur gar kyrayc_ you stupid, lecherous, _dar'ijaa…_ " This went on for some time. Once mum got angry enough to switch over to _Mando'a_ nothing in known space could stop her. I forget most of what she said, shocked as I was, my brain trying to figure out the math of the situation.

 **"You received several more in this same vein"** Lord Vader said, muting the still screaming voice of my mother. **"I take it you were unaware of this information?"** I might have been wrong but that question seemed to carry a hint of reproach, if not outright menace. "Yes, my Lord" I answered quickly. He nodded **"Then allow me to be the first to congratulate you sergeant."** "th-thank you, my Lord." I managed to get out somehow. **"I thought you might wish to take this information into consideration when selecting your next duty assignment. Carry on."** And with that he swept out of the room.

I seem to recall staring blankly at the holo for a few minutes, my mum, still on mute, giving me the business end of the blaster. Even Uncle Toggo seemed impressed with her lung capacity at this point. She kept on until whichever one of the boys she was holding (if you two are reading this you can debate which of you it was) started bawling. I quickly unmuted it to hear if she had anything else to say and, if I'm honest with myself, the sound of my son's voice. I remember thinking that he sounded strong. She finished shushing the boy and quietly said through gritted teeth "come home. Or you are _dar'manda_."

I'm not going to go into a lecture on Mandalorian culture here, let's just say that being _"dar'manda"_ is bad, _very_ bad, and leave it at that. The problem now was that I was under a communications blackout, my access to the holo-net cut off until I was cleared by higher, and the Emperor alone knows when that would have been. So, I cheated. I've said time and again that it pays to have friends in low places, and now was a good time to have them. One of navy's signal techs (communication specialist) had become very "friendly" with me prior to my deployment groundside. We had resumed our "friendship" about three hours after I got back aboard. There's nothing like being with a beautiful woman after a long deployment, very life affirming. But aside from enjoying each other's company, which I did, it turned out she was very concerned to hear that my mother was so ill.

Yes, I lied to her. It seemed a great deal simpler than telling her the truth. Hell, I wasn't even sure who the mother of these children was! I HAD been home on Coruscant for more than two months, flush with credits. And apparently, I cut a very dashing figure in my dress uniform, or so I was told. So, there might have been a _few_ girls who could've fit the timeline. I felt that this information might have counter-productive to my mission objective and my current "friendship" so I neglected to mention it. Yes, I am a terrible person. But she was so concerned she agreed to sneak a message disc through to the civilian-net. No, I did not get caught, by her or by the Legion. We parted ways amicably and never saw one another again, which was pretty standard for inter-service shipboard romances. I'd also like to point out here that not all of my friends in low places were the same type of "friend" as she was. Just happened to turn out that way.

That's probably another reason I think for all the fights between the Legion and the Navy; we stole all the pretty girls. In later years when they started letting women into the Legion it seemed to go the other way. That being that our girls would "hunt down" the "pretty boys" (or sometimes girls) and "make a man" (or again, woman) of them. Guess somebody had too, whatever passed for the Navy's boot camp sure as shite wasn't doing it.

Not even a week later those of us that were ambulatory were all back in spotless armour, filing into a courier ship that would take us back to Coruscant and a full debriefing. Lord Vader came with us, probably to report the, whatever it was, to His Majesty. The trip was only a few days, most of that in transit from Dathomir to the Hydian way. The two main topics of conversation were, "what duty assignment are you going to ask for?" and "what are you going to do with your combat bonus?"

Generally, the answers to the first fell into three categories. A large chunk of the newer enlisted kids were convinced that their survival on Dathomir meant they were invincible and said they would be requesting to go to the special forces school. They'd really enjoyed the great operational freedom they'd had on Dathomir. Future Imperial commandos, they said. A smaller, and probably wiser chunk, said that that was bouma-shit. The general consensus among this group was that any further skulduggery was pushing their luck. They intended to request nice "safe" assignments. Maybe in the core somewhere, ride that out till the end of their contracts. Can't say I fault them honestly. Third and most surprising of the groups was the old boys. My guess was they'd held a moot amongst themselves, and come to a group decision. Retirement.

To say I was surprised really doesn't do my reaction justice. I was sad, angry, abandoned and a little scared. These were the men I looked too to set the standard, to show the rest of us what it meant to be a soldier. In my heart of hearts, I still felt like _they_ were the troopers and I was just pretending. A little boy playing pretend in his father's armour. Ripper, who was probably my greatest friend/father figure in the Legion, said that they'd decided that they were just getting too old for this kind of dwang. Their late 30's being somewhat equivalent to a normal human's 60's and 70's. Their casualty rate had been proportionally higher during the last stand on Dathomir and they'd come to the conclusion that it was time to bow out before they became a burden. I argued, I cajoled, I seem to recall pleading a bit but they were not to be budged. What really convinced me they were serious was when Ripper gave me his knife. He said "I might be useless but at least this still had some service left in it." That didn't shock me; it took me right through shock and into really pissed off. So, I headbutted him. Don't wince; I purposely missed his missing eye socket.

We fought for a good twenty minutes, which if you know anything about Legionnaire hand to hand combat you know how long that is. He eventually got me, near dislocated my shoulder and I tapped out. "I guess you're not so USELESS are you, you kriffing droid-humping old shutta?!" I said, panting heavily. Closest I've ever seen a clone to tears. We hugged, there _may_ have been some tears shed then. Manly tears of course. I took Ripper (the knife) and put her in my belt. She's still there, to this day.

Well ok, she's on the night stand next to me as I write this, not actually IN my belt. I'm sentimental not impractical. Still credit where credit is due I've had this blade for over forty years now. Saved my life quite a few times. Got me written up for having an "unauthorised combat loadout" even more times. Frag 'em, Ms. Ripper and I are a team, not even Lord Vader could have parted us. Not that he was ever the kind to suggest it.

I, alone, made up the fourth group. I was bound and determined to keep my hand in the game but I wanted a posting that would keep me close to Coruscant so I could figure out what the hell I was going to do about these kids. After the arguing and the fighting, I sat down with Ripper (the man) and we had our own little moot. Obviously, he had no idea about childrearing, clones for the most part being uninterested in things that might conflict with their duty as soldiers. But as to where I could be stationed so as to meet all my requirements he was far more knowledgeable. In retrospect, it should have been obvious, a place close to the capital, that would allow me to keep my myself in fighting trim and give a near permanent connection to the holo-net. A place where I could help keep the spirit of the old boys fresh and alive. So, I would go back to Camp Cody and liberally apply boot-to-arse.

As to that second question "what are you doing with your deployment bonus?" THAT response was pretty universal. Alcohol; lots and lots of alcohol. Because if anyone needed a stiff drink at this point it was the still kicking corpse of Charlie company.


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

 _"_ _You never really leave home. It's your centre, your focus. You may diverge a bit, orbit the centre for a time, but inevitably you always come home. You come home, and are the better for it."_

Despite being back on Coruscant relatively soon after receiving word of my fatherhood, it would be a few months, miserable bureaucratic hell-spawned months, until I actually saw my children. After we landed we were escorted directly to the ministry of intelligence building and put on lock-down. They wanted to know everything; every detail of every operation we conducted on Dathomir. Where we went, what we saw, who we killed, what was said by whom and where. Again, and again white uniformed officers asked us all seemingly irrelevant questions.

To this day, I don't know what information it was that they thought was so important. Although amusingly after a few weeks I realized that they were trying to _intimidate_ us. They must have thought we were trying to hide something, or maybe they just wanted to make sure we weren't going to talk to the press about dead Dathmiri rising from the grave. The amusing part was that I didn't realize it at first; when you've faced down horrors in darkened caves and seen your brothers-in-arms dismembered, the posturing of career bureaucrats is pretty low on your threat level list. At one point, they suggested darkly that an interrogation droid might get "clearer" answers than just their questioning. I told them that they needed a _droid_ to do their job for them, they had better go get it. Maybe it would get me out of here faster they could.

After we were cleared from that foolishness we were subjected to an even worse fate, The Ministry of Health. We were, by and large, all healed up nicely, at least well enough to walk around, but they were convinced that we would need _psychological_ counselling. So off to behavioural health it was. Supposedly it was to see if we had any emotional issues after losing over 60% of our company. Personally, I think it was just another attempt to see if we'd talk about the dead madmen. I was assigned a "behavioural therapist" who's only job, it seemed to me, was to see if my _feelings_ were hurt. Heh, as if I had "feelings." I've already talked about the Legion's uniform stoicism so you can imagine how well THIS process went. The worst part was that the Ministry of Health were all _civilians,_ who for the most part have NO idea what the hell they're talking about.

"you need to address your repressed anger issues."

"If you say so ma'am"

"What is really bothering you?"

"Nothing ma'am"

"If you don't talk to me, I can't help you."

" _YES_ , ma'am"

I finally got out of it when the silly bint found out that my mum, and therefore I, was Mandalorian. She, rather stupidly, asked if I would like to see a _religious_ councillor. As I'd been coming to her office for nearly two weeks with no end in sight I agreed, mostly for a change of pace. So, they sent me a Mandalorian "priest" they had on staff. Those of you in the know realize that we don't fragging _have_ priests. "Religious" education, such as it is, is the responsibility of the parents not some berk in a robe. However, there is a Clan of Mandalorians with the _name_ Priest. I guess that's how he got away with it.

Kagg Priest was his name. He walked in, asked me a few questions. "What's your clan", "how long you been in the legion" that sort of dwang and after about five minutes of chit-chat he got to it. "Got anything you need to say?" he asked leaning against the desk in the head-shrinker's office. "Yeah." I said "Get me the kriff out of here." I was a might frustrated at this point. He just grinned. "Sure." And walked out. Never saw him or the _good doctor_ again, but I was clear of behavioural health.

After that was a quick hop, skip and a jump over to PerMin to request my new duty assignment AND make sure I had leave coming to me. That was the least painful part of the process by far, downright D-fragging-lightful in fact. I guess good old Ripper had managed to call ahead, and the reassignment officer, a clone trooper who I gathered had lost both his legs at Ringo Vinda, "requested" I take a position as drill sergeant. He "requested" because that way he could offer me a sizable signing bonus and leave package as "incentive" to take the job. The only "downside" was that I had to sign on for another five-year term.

I had already re-upped (reenlisted) back in early '39 (14 bby) and you generally don't re-up a mere year and a half later. But it was standard for an extended duty assignment like this one. Your time commit doesn't stack; which is to say that you don't _add_ the two contracts together. You sign a new contract, it kills the old one. So, I was only Legion property until late '45 instead of '49, but it's a moot point when you're planning to go indef (indefinite term of service i.e. career) as I was. But I got what I wanted, plus I got a whole six months of paid vacation out of the deal. That plus the dwell-time (leave/light duty accrued for hazardous combat deployment) and my ten days of paternity leave (because why the kriff not) meant I had a not insubstantial amount time to figure out what to do with my boys. Not that I even knew they were both boys at that point.

They held on to us for a few more days, till we all got through processing. They handed us our medals and paperwork and released us, out into the wilds of Coruscant. Despite my anxiousness (and I'll admit to no small about of fear) to see my kids I was persuaded to go out for one last huzzah with Charlie company. After all it was the last time I would see the most of them, alive in any case. So, we went out and tried to put as large a divot in our credit-accounts as we could. Downtown Coruscant may not be as wild as Nar Shadda, but (at the time) it was definitely a close second. Probably one of the wildest nights of my life; there is NOTHING funnier in this galaxy or any other than a drunk clonetrooper. We drank, we shouted, we toasted the fallen, we sang " _Vode An"_ so many times even the clones got sick of it. We got into several fights; I myself put an equally drunk rodian through a wall when he got a bit handsy with a twi'lek dancing girl who was having NONE of it. She was entirely _more_ grateful to me than was necessary, not that I minded. So, maybe I've got a thing for twi'leks, who doesn't? I mean I must have or I wouldn't be married to one.

The last ride of Charlie company is a glorious tale that could span a dozen volumes but as I have a strong suspicion that my grandchildren (not to mention my wife) will probably read this I'll leave it (mostly) at that.

I awoke the next morning in the back seat of a speeder I did not recognise with a twi'lek girl that I did. Ripper was in the front seat with, shock of all shocks, a girl of his own. Turns out we had "borrowed" a sky-cab. Ripper had pulled out the auto-pilot and tracker, flown around for a bit and then we'd parked on a roof somewhere. We watched the sun come up from the roof of that building, which if you ever get the chance is a hell of a view. Then we dropped the girls back at their respective apartments, Ripper's girl (who I would discover later was named Mira) gave him her holo-net address. They'd be married a few months later, before they set out to stake his claim on Naboo. I was his best man. I wish I could tell you they lived, as they say, "happily ever after" but nothing ever really turns out that way, not for us.

After a night of frivolity, having put my responsibilities, my impeding fatherly duties, and, not least of all, the verbal beating my mother would be dispensing, in the back of my mind, I started becoming nervous. "Not too late to go back to behavioural health, is it? Maybe I should spend more time talking about my feelings?" I joked weakly to Ripper as we pulled up to my mum's flat. "You got a job to do." Was all he said. We shook hands, promised to stay in touch, and he sped off. No idea what he did with the speeder.

So, I tidied my uniform, squared my shoulders and marched into battle. Mum was in the living room, in a fragging rocking chair if you can believe it, my boys fast asleep on her lap. She had a look in her eyes that promised death and destruction, a temporary stay of execution granted only because she didn't want to wake the boys (thanks for that lads). After my experience with the Mandalorian "priest" I'd developed a cunning plan for my survival. Mum was an old school Mandalorian lady (it's why Grandpa and them had left Mandalore after the "New" Mandalorian government took over after all) so _I'd_ go old school Mandalorian too. " _Ni olarom gar at ibic oyay, ner ade"_ I said kneeling before them, and indirectly her. She went as misty eyed as she did when I came home the last time, and that was that. Thank the stars I had that priest fellow's holo-net address and extra-net access.

I still got shouted at later of course, but she didn't cut my ears off or anything, something she had been threatening to do since I was six. Mostly she was pissed about the whole "being abandoned" thing. Which to be fair, really chapped my _sheb_ too. I made vid calls, talked to the attending physician, and anybody who'd even _seen_ Mariah on Corellia. Couldn't find her. Obviously, she didn't want to be found, or to have anything to do with her sons, which to this day makes me unspeakably angry.

But there was nothing to be done for it. So, I just resolved to do the same as I always did; the best I could, with what I had. Which was, and is, my sons, Jeorge and Kih'kal. If there is one thing in my life I can look back at without regrets, misgivings or my usual jaded cynicism it's my kids. Before I fought for a paycheck, to get out of my mother's house and for some misguided notion of _gra'tua_. After that point, I fought for them. I fought to give them a galaxy free of corruption and chaos. Where they could do whatever they wanted without the spectre of Hutt crime lords, or corrupt senators in the pocket of the banking clan, or crusty old religious farts in robes, who completely lacked in any secular oversight I might add, overshadowing their lives. In this, however, I failed them. The new republic is just as bloated and stagnant as the old one. We allow the _sacredness_ of personal liberties to foster chaos and violence in the streets. Corporations to run roughshod over people; and for what? So that Jon Q. Republica can piss into the wind and call it _liberty_.

Sorry, I got carried away there. This isn't supposed to be the political rambling of some old shutta. Hell, I'm not sure WHAT this is supposed to be. But I'll try to tone it down a bit. I never wanted to be one of those old grey-hairs, standing on their stoop shouting obscenities at passing kids. I'll just content myself with _muttering_ obscenities where only my wife can hear. Patience of a droid that woman.

The main point I was trying to make, before I succumbed to the tendency of the elderly to piss and moan about "the way things USED to be," was that I did a lot of growing up during those months. Sure, I was 25, but age and maturity are two different things to my mind. I've seen 19-year-old corporals with more self-assurance and maturity than 50-year-old fleet admirals. And no, I wasn't trying to take a poke at the navy just there, it's just a universal truth.

But the main issue was what to do with the kids now. I couldn't be with them all the time, unless you think I should have strapped them to my back and charged into battle like the Mandos of old. Money, thankfully, wasn't the issue. I had my sizable bonus tucked away and mum had been more frugal than the meanest bolt counter at imperial logistics with the money I'd been sending home. We both agreed that a nanny droid was out of the question; she insisted a human touch was needed, I just hate droids. I suggested hiring a regular nanny, but she'd have none of that. "You want to hire some _stranger_ to raise your sons?" _Unthinkable_. It became readily obvious to me over the next few weeks that what _she_ wanted was for me to find some nice girl (preferably Mandalorian), marry her and have _her_ raise the kids. She went so far as to hire a matchmaker, and spring her on me when I wasn't expecting it. I, on the other hand, was not in a place where I was willing to trust a woman enough to marry her. A one night tumble is a might different than a life-long commitment. The last two women I had been serious about had, in order, robbed me and abandoned my children. So honestly can you blame me? _My_ plan was to have her help with the kids, maybe keep the flat on Coruscant, maybe sell it and have the lot move into married quarters at Camp Cody. She didn't want to stop working. The fact that the money I sent home dwarfed to pittance she got by waiting tables was irrelevant. She didn't want to be a "burden" which quite frankly was ridiculous; and I told her so. So, I played the whole _resol'nare_ "duty to the family" card, which worked like a charm. She insisted that she keep the flat though because, "it's nearly all I have left to remind me of your father." Which worked on _me_ like a charm. So, straining my budget to the limits, I managed to purchase smallish lodgings in the area of Camp Cody, in the Doldrums system, the ownership of which was a perk of my new rank, so they could visit and have a place to stay.

Unfortunately dodging matchmakers and fighting over the flat were the easy bits. Taking care of babies is rough work. In my life, I have signed for a lot of expensive equipment ("signed for" means take responsibility for) but all that stuff pales in comparison to babies. They're fragile, loud and produce waste products fouler than anything a dropship ever exuded (especially YOU Jeorge). They're also cute, which is not normally in my bailiwick. I make an exception for my own progeny, which is of course a biological imperative. They're just lucky they had their mother's looks when they were babies. Stars help them if they'd had mine.

The biggest problem is that there aren't any technical manuals for babies. No diagrams, no step by step instructions to get them to eat solid food; Kal was particularly bad at that. Once you got used to the smell, diaper changes aren't too bad. I used to be able to field strip and reassemble Zeetha in well under a minute, and the skills are transferable. You've got to read to them, hold them, feed them, burp them, put them to bed, play little games with them, and generally fall in love them. Yes, if you are reading this, you little slags, you were once adorable. It certainly isn't MY fault you got ugly.

I stopped being a child on the day I learned that my father was not the fearless bulwark of justice I had always idolized him to be. I really and truly became an adult the day I packed up my children and my mum and took them to the house I owned. It's hard to describe the feelings I had, luggage and children in tow, queued up to get on a commercial flight off of Coruscant. Best I can put it in to words is "Holy Shite is this really happening?" It wasn't that it didn't feel real, in fact it felt MORE real than anything else I'd ever done to that point. It was solid and real and very visceral, I am here with MY FAMILY, going to MY HOME.

I'd gotten mum a holo-camera at some point during my stay and she loved it. Took so many pictures, and of everything, which now as an old man I'm grateful for, but at the time seemed a serious annoyance. I still have quite a few from that time on my "wall of shame" as I call it. My favourite from then is still a picture of me behind the double-wide pram scowling like death itself into the camera. Jeorge is grinning that dwang-eating grin he still has to this day and Kal looks like he just about to have a good long shout. Ugly family. MY family. And I can, have and will continue to stack the bodies of those who would threaten them.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

 _"_ _Nostalgia is life's greatest curse. There are places I'll remember_ _forever, and not a one of them is the better for having aged."_

Soft. That's the word that came to mind when I saw my first squad of trainees. So, so soft. I couldn't even remember a time when I was so soft. To be fair, it might have been because they hadn't had the bio-plex like I had. After I was off duty that first day I took a good hard look at myself in the mirror, and tried to remember what I looked like before Camp Cody. Obviously, I hadn't had all these scars. I had 1700 (five o'clock) shadow now. But on the whole, I wasn't THAT different, was I? Seeing those raw recruits, like a box full of puppies, did a bit of a number on me. I don't tend towards introspection at most times and seeing what I might have looked like a mere six years ago really showed how much I HAD changed. But surely, _I_ hadn't whined and whimpered like these scav-ing kriff-sticks; had I?

The two months before then, and after my leave was over, I'd gone through an expedited version of Camp Cody before assuming the role of drill sergeant. This was to re-familiarize myself with the process, and catch up on all the new developments. The most glaring change was that red phase was significantly longer, owing to the fact that we weren't giving them the plex anymore.

Physical fitness was one of the basic tenants of His Majesty's Stormtrooper Legions; we could fight harder, longer, and more tenaciously than any other force in the galaxy; be they mercenary, pirate, private security firm or rebel soldier. More than the armour that's what being a stormtrooper is about, out fighting and outlasting the enemy. Considering that our original, traditional enemy was droids you can imagine how hard we trained. So, the challenge was to bring these new pups up to speed with the same exacting standards. Specifically, this was to be my job.

The old boys were, with increasingly regularity now, retiring or semi-retiring. Ripper and the rest from the now dead and rotting Charlie Company weren't the first but they were definitely the crest of the wave. These semi-retirees were taking desk and training jobs in TRADOC (training and doctrine command). That being said they were more focused on the mental aspect of training, your black and white phases. They could have pulled off red phase too, but they decided to let the younger guys, like me, take that burden off their shoulders. Red phase Drill Sergeants were the first NCOs that the little pups saw at Camp Cody and so they HAD to be perfect. No weakness, no humanity, no mercy. They never even saw your face, and that was official policy. This served several purposes; for one thing, it's scary. We're supposed to be scary, it's part of the job and it helps when training idiot children. A blank helmeted stare can be far more effective than any explanation of "why" a thing must be done a certain way. The second major reason was so we could have time off during the cycle. I admit when I found that out I was simultaneously pleased AND pissed off. I had always assumed during my time at Camp Cody that our Sgts had been the same ones the whole time. Turns out that in red phase you rotate in and out on firewarden's schedule; two days on two days off. Keeps you fresh, and maintains the air of invincibility that His Majesty's Stormtroopers are supposed to have.

I could not have asked for a better assignment at this phase of my career. Kept in excellent shape, got to see my boys, and as a member of TRADOC I got some, albeit a rather small amount of, input into imperial regulations. I also was one of the first to see, use and break the new armour modification kits.

It had only taken the brass the best part of ten years to realize that although all Stormtroopers were trained the same, it didn't mean that everywhere we fought was the same. One of my fellow Drill Sgts had been stationed on Hoth for a spell, and he broke into mad uncontrollable laughter when he saw the Snowtrooper loadout. Considering he'd lost eight toes and six fingers to frostbite there I can understand.

You've probably seen all the variants, or at least heard of them. Snowtrooper, Sandtrooper, Seatrooper, Scout-trooper. We were all the same guys, just in a different outer-combat hardsuit. Some of the new sets were modular, meaning they only replaced a part of the normal combat loadout. The Sandtrooper kit for instance just replaced your shoulder pauldron with a combination heavy duty dust filter, and cooling unit. The Snowtrooper kit, on the other hand was an entirely different outer frame. It was completely contained, had an onboard battery and a heavy-duty enviro-package. It even caught your exhaled breath and used that to mitigate heat loss from the extremities.

While I got to see, and to some extent play with, the new bits and bobs red phase wasn't about that sort of dwang. It was about discipline.

Everything really came down to discipline in the legion. Even physical fitness is just having the mental discipline to keep exercising, to ignore the pain and the stress and that little shite-talking voice in the back of your head that tells you _can't_ do a thing. During red phase, we take that voice out to the woodline, and beat the stars-cursed shite out of it. Then we shoot it. The main complication to that process is that nobody can do it for you, the pups had to figure it out for themselves. I could yell and scream and prod and poke, but every trooper needs to find out for themselves. Some just can't do it, and while there was always a lot of pressure from above to pass every trooper-in-training, I personally made it my business to make sure that anybody who lived through red phase was A) not going to snap under combat stress and more importantly B) had taken that little "I can't" voice and buried it in an unmarked grave.

It was different for all of them what did it. Sometimes it happened over night, some mysterious revelation came to them in the wee hours of the morning. You could tell because they'd usually have this bored look at morning formation while everyone around them just looked miserable. Sometime I had the privilege to see the change happen, usually it was some physical drill that they had thought impossible in that first week, that they now were doing by rote without thinking. They'd be just moving their body, going through the motions, eyes cloudy from sleep deprivation, mind probably somewhere else when they'd blink, realize that they'd just done "the impossible" and this look would come over them, this look of pure stunned joy. If I was lucky enough to be on the scene I'd give them "the nod." One of the best parts of the job, getting the pups over that hump. Usually after that they'd break down in tears or just laugh. I always let 'em get on with it for a bit then get 'em hopping again.

My buddy Charris, who was a drill-sgt with me at the time, liked to tell this story about these two boys who had their moment at the same time, looked at each other and then started snogging each other right there on the slagging obstacle course. Still not sure what the official protocol and punishment for public displays of affection was. But Char, who also swung that way, thought it was sweet so he let them get on with it for a half minute then booted them back into formation. For me, I never gave a frag about that sort of thing, as long as it didn't interfere with the accomplishment of the mission I couldn't care less who you spend your bunk time with.

On the other side of the cred-stick we had the wash-outs. Kids who just couldn't or wouldn't be made into troopers. Rarely it wasn't the kid's fault; maybe he had an undiagnosed genetic condition that got missed in the reception screening. Maybe he hurt himself so bad he couldn't continue. It happens sometimes and that's the worst, but there's nothing to be done for it. Later when I was comandante, any time a case like that crossed my desk I would personally write them a letter of recommendation and urge another branch of the His Majesty's armed forces to accept the kid. The fact that they volunteered was always very important to me, that they were willing to stand with us and protect the galaxy meant something, so I felt they should be given a chance somewhere. Met one or two of them later down the road, they'd see my name on the headquarters roster somewhere and shoot me a thank you note through my official holo-net address. Always gave me a smile.

On the other, OTHER, side of the cred-stick were the truly reprehensible slags that were simply too weak of mind to become troopers. Instead of killing that "I can't" voice they let IT do the talking for them. Not only were they weak-minded cowards, they always tried to convince the rest the pups that they "couldn't" either. It wasn't enough for them be failures, they always tried to drag someone, ANYONE, down with them. To this day I don't know how people like that even made it through reception let alone into Camp Cody. I never wanted anyone to have to go through what my old squad did with Maerko, so I made it my mission, even before helping the good pups become better, to identify and de-fragging-stroy any mother-kriffer who threatened the good order and discipline of my training unit.

I developed a bit of a reputation with my superiors because of it, not necessarily a good one either. The officers seemed to believe that every failed trooper was a danger to their career progression, and so despised me. And I, in turn, cared more about the price of tea in Correlian trade corridor than I did for their opinion. Sergeant-Major Rizly (RZ-1333), the comandante at the time, thought I was doing the right thing, and he made sure I was allowed to get on with it. My best dual-purpose tool for this purpose was, and probably always has been, hand to hand combat training. Stars but did I have to fight to get them include that in red phase. Injury is an unavoidable outcome in hand to hand. Sometimes if you've pissed me off it's VERY unavoidable. But it's amazing how versatile it can be. I always taught the class, and I always chose two partners, the best of the class and my future wash-out. I never had to say a thing about the difference between the two, all the pups had to do was _watch_. I'd tear them both to pieces of course, but only the dwang-head would go to sick call. I could do the same manoeuvre in the same visible way and have one pup be just fine at the end, and the other in need of a bacta bath.

Anyway, my favourite part of red phase was after we'd done a bit of winnowing and I got to do Cadence. When you see a group of troopers what's the first thing you notice? Are they all in step? Left, right, left, right. If they aren't it's obvious and very noticeable. Also, it makes 'em look like shite. Keeping a formation in step is the function of the PG (platoon guide) he's the one standing on the left side of the formation. Cadence is the verbal cue that the PG uses to keep his formation in step. It can be as simple as "Left, right, left, right" but once you've got the basic idea drilled into your troopers' head you can have a bit more fun with it. You sing. Or in most cases bark rhythmically. The beginning of the phrase starts on the left foot and it ends on the right foot. Your squad repeats what you just sang, said, whatever; again, starting on the left foot.

Left foot. "Mama, mama can't you see?" Right foot. and then they go

 _Left foot. "Mama, mama can't you see?" Right foot_

"What the Legion's done to me"

" _What the Legion's done to me_ "

I don't know what it is about cadence, I'd never really sang before in my life, but you give me a steady beat and half-a-hundred guys to march along and I couldn't be happier. You've got your quick-time (standard marching pace) at about 120 steps a minute with a 77-cm step. And double-time (a jogging pace) at about 180 steps a minute and with a 92-cm step. You got others of course but those are the main two. You've got your Half-step, slow-step (for funerals) and route-step (which, ironically means that you don't have to be IN step) your mark-time which is just marching in place and a few others that never get used anymore.

But the two most commonly used ones were quick-time and double-time. So, you had march cadence and running cadence. Generally running cadence is more up-beat,

 _"_ _line a hundred droids up the top of the hill"_

 _"_ _bet a hundred credits I'll shoot em with skill"_

 _"_ _shot 97 and dropped to one knee"_

 _"_ _pulled out my knife and stabbed the other three"_

or

 _"_ _sitting on a mountain top firing my gun"_

 _"_ _fire so long that NavInt comes"_

 _"_ _NavInt, NavInt don't arrest me"_

 _"_ _arrest my chief hiding behind the tree"_

Considering you get about eight strides per line you can get going at a pretty good clip. I've always though it helped your breathing too, having to shout AND run at the same time.

Quick time march cadence is usually pretty sedate by comparison. It has a tendency to be more sombre and of course LOUDER.

 _"_ _walking down the street one daaay!"_

 _"_ _I met a total stranger."_

 _"_ _he asked me what I wanted to beeee!"_

 _"_ _I said a Storm-trooperrrrrrr"_

 _"_ _StormtrroooooOOOOOooooooper!"_

 _"_ _The LEEEEEGIOOON LEADS THE WAY!"_

Very moto, (that's legionnaire slang for motivational) gets the blood pumping, even now. I can sit here and scribe this and just recalling those cadences brings me back to the glory days. I'm a heavily scarred, severely arthritic veteran from the wrong side of the war and still nothing makes me remember those days quite like cadence. Cold winters, running the pups up mountains. Hot summers, my sons learning to walk and play in the sprinkler I set up in the backyard. Those scenes and hundreds like them. Triumphs and failures, great pride and fury, all overlaid with cadence rumbling and roaring in background, a hundred or a thousand or TEN thousand boots coming down in step; the drum of war beating in the ear and heart of every one of us.

There were other bits of course, I received several awards and commendations, mostly routine. Most notably I got the "Legionnaire's Medal" for non-combat heroics; some of my pups fell into a kriffing ravine during a little 30k hike in the mountains and fished 'em out. I also found the time, or more honestly, I was _made_ to find the time after the comandante "suggested" it, to pick up my two-year degree from an extra-net academy. That, and I was promoted again, which is the reason I was made to do it. The scuttlebutt around TRADOC was that because the new kids, as we were still called sometimes, didn't have the innate leadership skills that the old boys were _built_ with, certain arrangements had to be made to make sure that only the truly qualified soldiers made it to the upper enlisted ranks. One of those qualifications was continuing education. The policy hadn't "officially" come out yet but the comandante, who had taken a shine to me (in that gruelling somewhat terrifying way the old boys had) made me do it and so I found myself squarely ahead of the pack when it came to career advancement.

I'm tempted to say that this was the best time I had in the Legion. Even with hindsight it's hard to judge looking back on it. I think maybe it's safe to say that things were never as good as they were then, very little to worry about, other than the sleepless nights of worry that I imagine every father has for the future of his children, regardless of his profession. But overall, I'd say there was a general downward trend after I left Camp Cody that second time. There were good times, there were bad times, there were some _really_ kriffed up times. "All things pass" is a good thing to keep in mind during the bad times, so even then you just let the bad dwang roll through. Of course, it might just be that I never got over my next deployment. It just seems to be my fate but I never get to ease my way back into anything. Just my luck I go from the easy easy meiloorun squeezy life of Camp Cody right back into the thick of it. Right into the purge of Naboo.


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

 _"_ _Take too much from a man, and eventually he'll take something from you. Nobody's got nothing to lose."_

Tough part about being old is grandkids. They're pretty much unavoidable, once you've had kids anyway. Hell, the way Jarek runs around it won't be long till I have GREAT-grandkids. But one of the tough parts of having all these little rancor-rats is all the questions.

"Grandpa, why do blasters make that pew-pew sound?"

"Grandpa, how come we can't bring C8 when we visit? (that's their slagging droid)"

"Grandpa, what happened to all the Gungans?"

That LAST one's a tough one. My grandkids, much to my horror, loved those awful kids movies they made about the clone wars. You've seen them I'm sure, with young Anakin Skywalker and those two prats the got to play him. Terrible actors. And of course, they LOVE that kriffing flop-eared shite-head, Ja-Ja or whatever the hell his name was. On the one hand, I can't tell them the truth; they'd probably never speak to me again. On the other hand, my now mostly _robotic_ hand thanks to those stalk-eyed bastards, I could tell them EXACTLY what happened to them. We killed them. We killed them ALL.

I suppose you know, or perhaps you don't, public education in the republic being what it is, that His Majesty Emperor Palpatine was from Naboo. Was their senator too, before he became chancellor. Now when he became Emperor he, like I imagine most of us would, became somewhat nostalgic about his old home. He had Naboo declared an historic site, lots of parks and such no new industrial development, that sort of dwang. Somehow this filtered through the tiny Gungan brain as some sort of "human territorial usurpation." They went completely Acklay-shite. Came up from out of the water and started just slaughtering people. I mean literally gutting them, they weren't bloody herbivores after all.

So, in late '43 (10bby) I kissed my kids goodbye and left them with their _ba'buir_ on Coruscant. Uncle Toggo had started to work for local private security firm in mid-town, and swore, with all the zealotry and fervour of a "true" son of Mandalore, that he'd look after my kids. I half believe he took that job in the capital just so he could make that oath. Either way it was truly appreciated, it helps having someone around to take care of things while you're away.

It's a rough thing, leaving your kids behind, going off to war. Jeorge didn't understand, he kept burbling "see soon!" like I'd be back home for dinner, which just about broke my damned heart. Kal was always a bit brighter (sorry Jeorgie-boy but that's the truth) but I think he thought I was never coming back. That I was abandoning him with his _ba'vodu_ and _ba'buir_ forever. He'd already cried himself out and just kept hiccupping occasionally as left for my shuttle.

So, with that awful feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach I boarded a shuttle to Malastare to meet up with 212th legion " _Cody's Own_ " en route to Naboo. Luckily Naboo is a bit out of the way, being almost half way between the Hydian way and the Corellian Run, and so I had enough time to meet and begin whooping my section into shape.

My first section, what a trip. It was my first _real_ section, obviously I'd led troopers before but always as a backup, an alternate. These troopers were _mine_ and I'd already decided they would be the best in the Legion. I guess looking back I was still a bit naive.

They most certainly weren't the best, but they also weren't the band of miscreants that is the popular cliché on the vids. They were just men. Similar only in that they survived through Camp Cody and the Legion long enough to end up here. My second was Sgt Joven, a big son-of-a-shutta, from Balmorra originally. Very dry sense of humour, much smarter than most troopers. Cpl Sto was the alternate fire team leader, very dedicated trooper, wasn't the brainy type (but who am I to talk). But there wasn't a thing he couldn't learn to do once he set his mind to it. Pvt Abeyn was a skinny little shite from the core with a sense of entitlement ten times bigger than himself. But he was in for the education benefits and wanted to be a doctor. Harken was a lazy bastard, but I never found a vehicle or weapon system he couldn't repair and operate. Little Dom, who definitely was too short to be a stormtrooper, but had a true passion for violence. Serious case of little dog syndrome, that one. And there was Noza who was earnest as a kid could be, but had all the brainpower of an inbred cocker spaniel.

To my absolute disappointment my new company, Alpha this time, didn't have an official hand-to-hand program going on, and the company commander, a Cpt. Otefer, wasn't having any of it. That mother-kriffer was one of the worst leader of soldiers I have ever had the misfortune to witness, let alone serve with. What's worse, everyone knew it. There wasn't a trooper from the Gunnys on down to the dumbest private (again probably my Noza) who didn't hate that piece of dwang.

Generally, as a rule, the rank and file don't care for officers. I've said that before and I'll try not to belabour that point here, but it got real bad for a few months on that ship. The Cpt. was _actively_ malicious to his soldiers, despite the fact that the weakest of them could have picked him up and broken him in half quite easily.

It's hard to describe, how a leadership style can change your whole dynamic. I'd been very fortunate up to that point in my commanders. Sure, they'd been predominantly useless, but there is a vast gulf separating the merely useless with the actively detrimental. He tried to rule us with memorandum and schedules. Most terrifyingly he was very accomplished at getting troopers chaptered out (means getting kicked out of the legion) and 1SG did nothing to stop him.

1SG Waller, (WT-1125) was clone, one of the few who was still clinging on to the combat arms portion of the job. He wanted to die with his armour on. The problem was that he was losing it, mentally. It wasn't senility, not like we non-clones get, but it was something in the brain. Probably a combination of trauma to the head and the rapid aging. But either way he, wasn't able to keep up with all the dwang that came out of the Cpt. office.

A 1SG's job, predominantly, is keeping the real stupid ideas that the officers have away from the troopers. It's why his job description begins with "the senior enlisted advisor at the company level." It's not the only thing a 1SG does, not by a long shot, but where the morale of the lower echelons is concerned, it's singularly important. And quite frankly he wasn't doing it. It took me a long time to stop trying to defend his actions and really consider what was going on, part of that persistent idolatry for the clones my generation had. With a hot drop on Naboo a mere 96 hours away I did the unthinkable. I called a moot for the first time.

I was pleased to find that even as the most junior section chief every NCO in the company, excepting 1SG, turned out. Even the Gunnys, also both clones, came and didn't immediately try to break us up. They knew something had to be done but, and this was the weak suit of the old boys, they couldn't "betray" their brother. Never mind the fact that it was the officer who was the one who was like to get us killed, countermanding a higher-ranking clone was simply was _not done_.

So, after we all assembled in the zoo's dfac I started it off. I acknowledged I was the youngest chief in the room, and just told them point blank that unless we did something we were all going to get killed, and more importantly fail in our duty. We argued and bandied about for a good hour and agreed that real problem was that the Cpt. was trying to do too much. Trying to move us about like pieces on a board. The consensus was that we should simply move too quickly for him to keep up. Fighting metaphor again: you assess, shape, dominate, and transition; urban pacification techniques. It required at least three times the work from all involved but the plan was to get things done _before_ they needed doing. Do a thing right and nobody can order you to do it the wrong way.

It WAS a lot of work, essentially after a staff meeting we had to have a second, more concise staff meeting, assessing probable avenues of attack on future tasks. We were pretty successful; the shite head threw us a few spin-balls here and there but for the most part we kept him pretty isolated after that. Took a lot of stress off 1SG shoulders, which warmed my mostly cold dead heart.

Naboo was a shite show. The Gungan insurgents had taken the rest of the population completely by surprise. Not only that, but the local militia, and to this day it astounds me, didn't have any equipment for underwater operations. So, the bastards would take their ships through the core of the planet, the damned world was hollow if you can believe it, pop out, cause a ruckus and the disappear back into the water. At first the PDF tried to stretch themselves real thin, cover every point of egress, got ROYALLY kriffed up. By the time we'd got there they'd pulled back, just trying to fort up in the major metropolitan areas. Left all those farmers out in the grasslands uncovered. In their defence, they didn't have the intel to make a real go of it. They didn't know if a local lake was just that, a lake, or a tunnel that the misbegotten slags could pop out of. Whole hearted failure of intelligence gathering; you live a planet a few thousand years you _might_ want to make a map.

So, our task was twofold, protect the citizenry and destroy the enemy. Just what form that second part would take was still being decided by the brass, so we tried to cover down on the tasking the PDF had failed at. Which leads me to one of the worst days of my life.

I have a lot of screamers, but the one that is unique in its absence of any threat to my person is the one I brought home from Naboo. I run, and I run and I _run_ but I know, just as I did then, that I'm too late, much MUCH too late. I saw the slagging smoke on the horizon after all, it's what I've been running towards this whole time. If I'm lucky I will wake up before I get there. As I've pointed out many times I am generally NOT lucky. So inevitably I will arrive, to see my friend, my father figure, my brother and the symbol of nearly everything I hold dear, tied by his wrists on a pole. His guts, or what's left of them, trailing in the dirt. His face somehow distinct despite the blood, his nose and ears bitten off. Fucking invincible Ripper. Gutted and left for the carrion birds. Pretty Mira in the same state a few paces away, facing him. Because of course they made them watch each other.

It didn't go down exactly like that of course, not that dreams give a shite about that. I had no idea where Rippers house was on Naboo, we talked a few times by message packet but mostly mundane stuff. I had hoped he had got his family off world when the troubles started. I hadn't heard from him, which was worrisome, but if he'd uprooted his family he'd probably have more important things to do than call his old buddy mad-dog and let him know he was safe. Maybe I was being wilfully ignorant but I couldn't imagine anything happening to him. He survived a blaster bolt to the head for kriff's sake! How was a kriffing Gungan supposed to top that?

We were out on patrol, basically just daring the squawking bastards to come out and fight us. We'd spotted a burning homestead attached to a farming community. Another squad, not mine, had gone in, to clear and report. It's not a part of the screamer but I still remember Sgt Gray's voice over the net.

"Awww fuck, it's a clone."

And I knew, just like that I knew. I fucking _knew_. I went sprinting into the farm house and saw… well I already described it, didn't I? My dreams don't let me forget THAT part. The part that deviates from my dream, and this is the only reason I probably didn't have a breakdown right then and there, was the crying of little Nakkla. Ripper or Mira had managed to hide their little girl under the damn floorboards, and somehow, she'd been able to sleep, or keep quiet, through what those _dar'manda ori'dush_ ANIMALS, did to her parents. I was in a haze most of the rest of that day as I explained as best I could to 1SG and that schutta of a captain the situation and why, under NO circumstances was I letting go of this child while we were still outside the wire (means out of garrison in unsafe territory). Unfortunately, the Cpt. was having none of it, at least until I pulled out Ms. Ripper and, after everyone stopped panicking, performed the damned Mandalorian adoption ritual right there, not 10m from the festering corpse of her father. So, there you go kiddies if you were wondering why your Aunt Nakki looks nothing like me you've got your answer.

Every trooper, and hell even a one or two of the lieutenants, had my back at this point. The clones knew exactly what I'd done and the rest of them could tell it was no small matter. All except Captain Otefer. That walking stain of shite arrived a few minutes after I had and ordered the whole farm burned. He also was under the misconception that he could take my daughter from me. I took off my helmet. I told him that if he didn't turn around and walk right the kriff away right now I'd kill him. I'd make what the Gungans had done to my brother look like a kriffing Sunday stroll through imperial plaza. He went as pale as his darker skin allowed and about as wide eyed Scythian night-bat and walked away. I haven't the foggiest idea what my face must have looked like at that point but considering not a soul did anything but walk on eggshells around me for about a week it must have been a sight. First and last time I ever took off my helmet in a hot zone.

So, Ripper and Mira got a proper funeral and, somehow, I managed to get away with keeping an 18-month-old in a f.o.b. (forward operating base pronounced f-Ah-b) for about a month. I managed to get a line to Coruscant and send a data packet about the situation. I hoped, and was justified in that hope, that Toggo would come out and pick up the newest Nuffee. But I knew it would take time, so we bunch of louts took it in turn to watch over Nakkla, there was a duty roster and everything. She became our company mascot, and even after I left our nickname was "the screaming nakkies" the girl had some _powerful_ lungs on her. I seriously hope she doesn't have any memories of what happened there on Naboo that day, I don't wish the kind of dwang that makes a screamer on anyone. But if you read this sweetheart, and you need to talk you know where I live.

Toggo sped across the half the galaxy, and we managed to make the hand off. Nakkie had finally settled down enough to be manageable and almost immediately started up again after I gave her to Toggo. Poor sod. He was a good man, my _ba'vodu,_ I owe him a lot.

We'd been on the planet maybe 6 months when the brass finally got off their arses made a decision, although I highly suspect that His Majesty just got tired of their dithering and just gave them a directive. The Purge of Naboo.

If it was Gungan we shot it. There were no trials, no arrests, no bureaucracy. They'd made it clear that humans were their enemy and so their enemy we would be. There was a bit of rumbling among the young pups about that, not everyone had lived through the fall of Lasan after all. For myself I just couldn't stop seeing Ripper, every time I pulled the trigger and one went down. I have no regrets about what I did on Naboo, first time I wished that the T-7 hadn't banned. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or hell maybe that makes me downright evil. I've been called worse. All I know is that I don't dream about all the Gungans, I dream about Ripper and Mira, strung-up and mutilated.

The Battle of Otoh Gunga was a strange affair. No air or artillery support, hell you couldn't even hit it with kinetic strikes from orbit it was so deep down. So Seatrooper gear it was. We had to recommission some of their captured craft, because nothing in our standard arsenal would work underwater well enough. The Aquatic Battalions were still a good 5-6 years away from existence. We jury rigged a bunch of combat systems to the sides of them, then had our subject matter experts, a couple of Mon Calamari engineers the brass had called in, have a look through them, and sign off on their sea worthiness. In many ways, it was like ship to ship combat, trying to cross an untenable void to engage the enemy. Of course, last minute our shite-head of a captain volunteered us to give up our craft and essentially use a naked style assault in the new, and mostly combat untested, Seatrooper kit. It was essentially like doing an airborne combat jump, but in slow motion, and complete darkness, and with a bunch of hungry large carnivores, probably trained by the enemy, circling between you and the objective. Basically, a fragging nightmare. Lucky, I have a higher standard of nightmare than most folk. Of course, after the drop we drifted off course, gps being a might wonky under a few km of water so had to swim a good pace to get to the LZ (landing zone). So, we took some casualties, unluckily NOT the Cpt. who had of course elected to remain on dry land, the cowardly shite, and arrived a bit late to the party.

Arriving late is never ideal, there's always the chance that doing so leaves somebody uncovered their _sheb_ out in the breeze just waiting to be kicked. In this case, however, it worked out well. The main breach style offence was being met and stymied by the defenders. Our naked style from above was a complete surprise and essentially a massive flanking manoeuvre. We landed on the roof assembled the breach kit and hit the charges. We and three other companies, one "volunteer" from each battalion, hit our four entry points on the roof and came in, only two at a time. Must have been expensive because they only gave us one kit per platoon. More likely our procurement officers were idiots. Lucky the rest of the regiment had most of their forces tied up or we might have had our arses handed to us right there and then.

It was a madhouse. The Gungans favoured a heavy shield defence combined with melee and thrown weaponry. Also, they had actual mounted cavalry, their Kaadu knights. Not really ideal for use in a building, but their architecture favoured long curving hallways, really let them build up speed. I actually wrote a paper on it when I was getting my master's degree in ancient military history, as an example of how disparate races have different conventional attitudes towards combat.

But practically it was a surprisingly good tactical strategy, strong defence at choke points with their impressive shields and significantly _less_ impressive "boomas." I don't care what that stupid movie said there is no way those damned things, no matter the size, took out tanks. It was like a contained thermal charge, if it hit you it might melt through your armour in a second or two, but not battle steel. But they'd hold at rally points and meet any concentration of force with cavalry. If they'd been smarter, or maybe had better offensive weapons maybe there'd have been a different outcome. Also, they didn't communicate efficiently, no two battle groups knew what the other was doing. Hell, half the time the main defenders didn't know that the cavalry was charging until they heard the flapping of heavy webbed feet behind them.

For us the key was timing, you really couldn't shoot through the shields they were putting up, not without expending most of your magazine anyway. So, you'd hole up, wait for a cavalry charge and then overwhelm it, or at least wait for them to rally back to their regroup point, then continue to press forward. You could physically force your way through the shield, and once you had a dozen troopers through it was game over. But it was still hand to hand in some places. Luckily the Gungans were, shield tech notwithstanding, a bunch of primitives. Their melee weapons might as well have been cookware for all the good it did them. And they wore not a hint of personal armour. Some of them carried shields with the same shield tech on them but that was easy enough to grab and toss aside, the shield bearers didn't carry weapons themselves.

The worst bit, for me anyway, was when my section and I had one of the big fat ones, cornered behind a particularly tough shield. He'd managed to position the shield so that they fell just outside of a low wall. Lot harder to force your way through when you can't build up momentum. So, I'd elected to just hammer the shield till it fell and then shoot the fat bastard. Unfortunately, I missed that flapping of feet as a lone knight charged though my formation and thumped me across my firing arm, which gave me a nice greenstick fracture, spun me around and through the shield. The big one jumped on me as I fell so, I socked him in the jaw with my left and tried to force him off of me. He, kriffing savage that he was, elected to bite my hand and worry at it like a hound with a bone. So, in a truly appropriate symbolic gesture, I fumbled out _Ms._ Ripper and stabbed him in the face. A lot.

After my boys pulled me off of him, I got ushered to the nearest cas-evac (casualty evacuation) point. Barely even felt it I was so worked up, but as it turned out that slimy pile of slag had mangled all four of my fingers and most of my palm up to the "life line" as they say. So, more prosthetics for me. Dura-steel fingers and rods up my forearm for support. This one wasn't considered a "major" loss of limb so I didn't have to re-up again for it, lucky me. It's probably because it doesn't require the same adjustment period as a leg. They can slap that on you and have you out the door in hours, if they need to. I got a week's worth of rehab because everything was just mop up after the battle.

I remember sitting in the medi-shuttle betting ferried back to dry land and the hospital in Theed, fading in and out. They'd given me drugs for the pain I still hadn't really felt yet when I heard, more felt, the bombs going off. The whole op had been a limited strike with the intent of placing large proton bombs in the city. They were pretty centralized the Gungans, only had the one city. So, we took it from them. They took a lot from me so I can't say I didn't enjoy that. I felt that shockwave, followed by a bone deep sense of satisfaction, and went to sleep. A nice dreamless sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

" _Work hard, play hard, sleep soft and die hard."_

I'd been having trouble sleeping. No, not because of all the genocide. It was my hand. My new prosthetic hand. It itched. It itched something fierce and I couldn't sleep. I hadn't gotten those phantom pains and itches when I'd lost my leg. Very clean transition that. But my fingers… I don't know. I didn't have the fancy synth-skin with nerve connections, it was just plain black matte dura-steel, but stars it would _itch_ sometimes. I would just lay there every night, flat on my back, left steel hand cradled in my right and just scratch. Couldn't feel it of course but it wasn't anything else to be done for it.

Sleep deprivation, combined with grief for ripper, multiplied by me missing my kids (I'd become very attached to little Nakkie very quickly) on top of the fact that my company commander was still a miserable little sky-humper (slang for anyone who kisses the arse of their superiors) meant I was in as bad a state as I'd ever been. So, I succumbed to one of the great vices of soldiers everywhere; alcoholism.

Mankind has been fermenting and brewing since time immemorial, almost as long as we've been making war on each other. And so, also since time immemorial, soldiers have enjoyed a drink. In the main because it's a relaxant, and we have what _might_ be considered one of the more stressful jobs around.

I don't care what some general somewhere says, or what the armed forces PR Dept. puts out, soldiers drink. Full stop. We drink a lot. If you ever want a real good time go to a military ball. It's a lot of pomp and fanciness… for the first twenty minutes. Then it's a drunken revel. Hell, even the officers get into it. I once danced the _Dha Werda Verda_ with Colonel Veers. Even Moff Tarkin would pull the stick out of his _sheb_ for a ball. Ok maybe only _part_ of the way out, it was a mighty big stick. And if you ever have the dubious pleasure of a LEGIONNAIRE'S ball? You will have your definition of a "good time" forcibly altered. For us it's not a _real_ party unless there's a dozen fights, multiple broken bones and, if we're dirtside, extensive property damage. I once got so completely _batnor_ I decided the rec hall we were in wasn't well fortified enough, so the whole damned company and I fortified it; with explosives.

All of this perfectly acceptable, what is NOT acceptable is to drink on duty, be drunk on duty or be involved in some sort of mishap while drunk in your off hours. Don't drink and fly, you know the rest. But I tell you this, your work day is great deal LESS stressful if you have a nip or two in the morning after PT (physical training). Completely unauthorised, but there it is. What really hooks us is that you can't have trouble sleeping if you're blacked out drunk. It's what got me after all. After a bottle or two or Corellia's single malt my hand stopped itching. It becomes very easy for the drink to become a crutch.

It can be a big problem, mostly because moderate use of alcohol is completely fine, and even, in the case of military balls, encouraged. So, we watched out for one another, policed one another up, as the saying goes. Hell, our capacity for booze was seen as a badge of honour by most of us, or at the very least a sort of running joke.

"I'm not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings"

"I don't make enough to be an alcoholic, I'm just a drunk."

"How can it be day drinking when I'm in _space_?"

Another problem was that we very rarely gave off the classic physical "warning signs." We're talking about a group of people that can nod off standing upright and be combat alert in seconds, run a mile and be barely awake by the end of it. It's the mental bits that's you've got to watch for, erratic behaviour, money troubles ('cause we drank it all away), lack of initiative, all warning signs. Which is why as a NCO it's so important to get to know your soldiers. If you didn't know that a trooper was normally a hardcore stoic, him chatting aimlessly might not be recognized as a warning sign.

I was focused keeping an eye on my soldiers, and trying to keep my own drinking under control when I learned a hard lesson. You can't always just focus on the guys to your left, you have keep an eye on the guys to your right too.

It all came to a head near the end of '44 on board the _Remorseless_. My idea to have a companywide hand-to-hand training program had been blocked again and again, until our stupid shite of a commander "came up with" a "new" idea. We should have hand-to-hand drills! And who would be in charge of it? Obviously not the damned Camp Cody hand-to-hand instructor OR any Clonetrooper, who probably had forgotten more than most of the officer corps ever knew. Why of course _he_ would teach it. It wasn't that he was completely unskilled, just that he was a prat who knew nothing about instruction. It also became very clear, very quickly that as usual it would just be an exercise in vanity for him. He just liked to show off techniques, usually very poorly, by beating on the lower ranking troopers. He never picked a "demonstration" partner he couldn't throw around with impunity. It happened after a few weeks of wasting an hour or so a day watching the idiot teach manoeuvres incorrectly. He been throwing little Abeyn the mat for about 20 minutes when 1SG popped in. If I'd been paying attention, and had been entirely sober, maybe I'd have noticed something. Maybe I could have… done… hell _anything_. 1SG Waller just came in, that sort of calm detached smile he normally wore on his face. Just said "Can I have a word sir?" like some little piece of information needed to be brought to the Cpt's attention. Cpt Otefer just dropped Abeyn where he was and sauntered over, preening under his own self-importance. 1SG put his hands on the Cpt's shoulders, and this is where I should have moved, should have done something. That same benevolent smile on his face he snapped the Captain's neck.

One heartbeat. The room exploded. In screams and hollers, like a damned enemy attack had just broken through the lines. My Gunny, Gunny Therm, was restraining 1SG. Gunny Vo the other platoon Sgt just stared, this almost bored look on his face. Abeyn wasn't more than 3m from the corpse and had gone stock still eyes as large star destroyers. Through it all 1SG never said a word, never resisted. His eyes were unfocused somewhere in the middle distance. That placid smile still on his face.

He wore that damned smile through the court-martial, and in front of the firing squad. Never said another word, never made another move except as he was directed.

It was happening all over the galaxy, though PerMin did their level best to keep it quiet. The old boys were, in rare cases, going absolutely starkers. Sometimes they'd just shut down, sometimes they'd come into the mess hall juggling live thermal detonators. It was absolutely horrifying, to the new kids and to the clones that retained their sanity.

This is where a lot of those conspiracy theories come from, about brainwashing or control chips or His Majesty's "dark" force powers. Boumashite the lot of 'em. The awful bit was that the madness didn't always manifest in immediately destructive ways, the new republic loves to go on about how some of the old boys _defected_ to the "right side." Leave it to those bastards to spin "elderly soldiers with cloning related mental degeneration" into "heroic veterans who see the error of their ways." Makes me sick.

I had no love for that commander, kind of wish _I'd_ been the one to snap his neck, but the real tragedy was the clones. 1SG and all of them had served loyally and well for so long only to have _this_ as their reward. This awful ticking time bomb in their heads. Nothing could be more horrible to a people so disciplined and so honourable. The constant trickle of retirees became a flood. If they even bothered with retirement. I got to be the one who found Gunny Therm with the back of his head coating the bulkhead of his quarters about a month after 1SG went up against the wall. Dress uniform on, armour racked and stacked ready to be turned in. His final notes a memorandum on the disposition of his personal effects, what there was of them, and a new duty roster parcelling out his additional duties to the rest of us. He left me a half a bottle of Corellian brandy with the word "moderation" written on the side in grease pencil. So, I guess he knew.

I won't try to say that I gave up drinking after that but I always tried to remember that bottle with "moderation" tattooed on the side, it pairs quite nicely (albeit in a horrible way) with the image of Gunny Therm's skull scattered on the wall. Wish I'd have kept that bottle, but it slipped away from me in one of my many moves from ship to ship. After that, I figured that if I wasn't going to get any sleep I might as well work. So, if I didn't fall asleep in the first half an hour of laying down, I went to the gym. More than a few times I fell asleep on a weight bench, or nearly broke my neck nodding off on a treadmill. I didn't want to black out anymore, so I just opted for passing out instead. I admit I was seriously worried about mental fatigue whenever we did our next dirtside rotation. I didn't care what happened to me but I couldn't stand the thought of somebody in my squad getting killed because I gave the wrong order, or didn't give _any_ order. Shouldn't have worried so much, nothing resets a trooper's brain like a good combat campaign. Your brain just takes all that useless dwang and shunts it out the airlock, it's much better at keeping you alive that we give it credit for.

So, when all the smoke cleared in mid '45 (8 bby), only about 10% of the old boys who'd been there the prior year were still in active service. This left something of a vacuum in the upper echelons which needed filling which is why I found myself promoted again to sergeant first class, and getting my first look at master sergeant.

Sergeant first class (SFC) is the beginnings of what is unofficially called the "senior" enlisted, because often we are the senior enlisted advisor to an officer. Also, because we're usually older. I was 29 at this point and anybody fresh from Camp Cody was 7 to 11 years my junior. Of course, there was still the manning shortage so while they'd given me the rank they hadn't given me a new chief to fill my old section slot. So technically I was wearing two hats for about a year; section chief and gunnery sergeant. Me and my two hats got themselves well and truly fitted a few weeks after my promotion when we did a "hot" drop (har har) onto everyone's favourite ice ball, Hoth.

Those of you who got your education on this era from those propaganda vids they made are a bit confused right now I'm sure. This was the _first_ battle of Hoth, of something like four or five of them. The famous one, where me and mine got to "strike back", is _third_ Hoth in '56 or 3 ABY. This was my first real glimpse of what would soon become, if they weren't already referring to themselves as, the alliance against the empire. Bloody stupid name.

The rebs loved ice worlds, deep ice scrambles sensors and the cold makes it hard to use thermal detection (provided the idiots didn't bring a space heater). If you need an extra bunker you just carve it out of the permafrost. Free building material and lots of space. No wonder they came back again and again, and not just Hoth, as I recall the imperial directory had something just shy of 200 ice worlds that could be inhabited without major atmospheric consideration. Real pain in the arse.

I have to say though I did like the Snowtrooper rig. Nice and snug and surprisingly very well built. For the amount of tech, they crammed in there it didn't malfunction nearly as much as you'd expect, which is good. If it malfunctioned out on patrol you'd be a dead man, or at the very least short a few toes soon afterward.

Hoth was a nice reset for me. Let me get back to what I was good at, namely kicking rebel _sheb_ , when and wherever I found it. After my PL (platoon leader, a lieutenant) got scragged in the first 72 hours, much to our "sorrow", I initiated what I called the "Dathomir protocols" essentially, we went spelunking again. The rebs weren't nearly as good at the business as the madmen had been. Total blue milk run. It was as if a Pro repulsor-puck team played the local junior academy team. Unfortunately, the little slags would get a lot better in the next decade, but as of now they were a bit pathetic. Not even very good at hiding, should have taken us months to find them if'n they'd had their heads about them. But of course, they didn't have heating suits in the armour, and so one of them DID have a space heater. From there it was a nice simple raid to snap them up then slice into their net and grab up the positions of the other cells. We dropped a whole regiment on their heads when half a battalion probably would have done just fine.

It took all of four months to wipe them off the map but we stayed on the planet for an extra few months, waiting for another ship to come pick us up. I worked out, logged into the net and started working on my bachelor's degree (leadership and tactics from U of Coruscant East) and spent a lot of time boumashiting with my guys. Bad times come and go and the bad times were gone for a while. After we got out of there and after the next shipboard rotation we got to one of my fondest remembered campaigns. The Siege of Tosste.


End file.
